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FDA Decision on Pfizer Vaccine Imminent after Panel Recommendation; Biden to Introduce more Cabinet Nominees and Senior Advisers Today; Congress Remains Paralyzed, Unable to Pass Relief Package. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired December 11, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

[10:59:54]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us this hour.

Today, we are waiting and standing by. We are waiting for the FDA to officially announce emergency use authorization for Pfizer's COVID vaccine. That could happen at any time.

This morning, HHS Secretary Alex Azar confirmed that FDA officials, in his words, intend to proceed toward finalizing and giving the green light to the vaccine.

We are also waiting for the Supreme Court to signal whether they will take President Trump's latest baseless lawsuit to trying to invalidate the votes of millions of voters in four battleground states.

Texas just filed its response defending the lawsuit against you know trying to invalidate those votes which means the justices could respond at any time as well.

We're also waiting on the president-elect. Joe Biden will be formally introducing more of his picks for his incoming cabinet today, though he is already facing some pushback that

the -- in filling it out, he's filling it out too much with too many holdovers from the Obama administration.

And we're also waiting on Congress to do its job, quite frankly. Capitol Hill is familiar -- is in a familiar place yet again. Yet it is a no less disappointing place yet again. Paralyzed, unable or unwilling to reach a deal on a relief package as millions of Americans struggle in this pandemic and are about to hit a cliff with benefits running out.

We'll have more on all of that in just a moment, but first for the latest on where the country stands with COVID-19 and this pandemic. Here's CNN's Adrienne Broaddus.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the pandemic continues to worsen across the country, one ray of hope, with an advisory board for the Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization for Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine.

DR. PAUL OFFIT, MEMBER, FDA VACCINES ADVISORY COMMITTEE: I voted yes. I think we know enough now to say that this appears to be our way out of this awful, awful mess.

BROADDUS: After the full FDA signs off, which can happen at any time, an advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to vote Sunday whether to recommend the vaccine. Once the full CDC signs off, vaccinations can start.

Here in Chicago, hospitals are preparing. They're starting to receive the Pfizer vaccine by getting freezers capable of storing the vaccine ready at the appropriate temperature. They're also setting up vaccine bays like this one at Rush University Medical Center, to streamline the vaccination process once emergency use authorization is granted.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We, as a nation, need to continue to wear the masks, to keep the physical distance, to avoid crowds. We're not through with this just because we're starting a vaccine program.

BROADDUS: But as the country prepares for the potential first vaccine doses, some hospitals are quickly reaching their breaking point. CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield thinks the next few months will be tough.

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: Probably for the next 60 to 90 days, we're going to have more deaths per day than we had at 9/11 or we had at Pearl Harbor.

BROADDUS: More than 2,700 deaths were reported Thursday. And in the first ten days of December, the United States reported more than two million new coronavirus infections.

More than 107,000 coronavirus patients are in the hospital, a record.

In New Mexico, the surge forcing the state to activate its, quote, "crisis care standards," including suspending all nonessential surgeries.

Los Angeles County shattering its daily case record again, reporting more than 12,800 new cases.

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D-CA), LOS ANGELES: It's happening so quickly, sometimes we can't even take in these numbers. That's up 128 percent since last week, 300 percent since last month, 1,000 percent since a month and a half ago.

BROADDUS: And Pennsylvania seeing a substantial uptick in cases this month. Starting Saturday, indoor dining, gyms, and indoor entertainment, such as movie theaters, will close until January 4.

GOV. TOM WOLF (D-PA): Over the past several weeks, it's become clear that we need to take further mitigation actions to protect Pennsylvanians and stop the spread of COVID-19. We all hoped it would not come to this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROADDUS (on camera): And here in Chicago at Rush University Medical Center they set up a vaccine clinic for employees. You'll notice there are about 10 stations behind me. That's where those frontline workers will receive the vaccine and the folks you see behind me are preparing to go through a drill where they will practice administering the vaccine in a mock situation. Back to you.

BOLDUAN: Adrienne, thank you so much.

Joining me right now, CNN medical analyst Dr. Larry Brilliant. He spent his career fighting epidemics including his work with the W.H.O. to wipe out smallpox.

[11:05:07]

Doctor, it's good to see you. Thank you for coming back in.

This is when we talked about the vaccine, this is heading to approval to get the green light for emergency use. What does that moment mean in the fight against the pandemic?

DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thanks for having me, Kate.

It seems like it's always dark as just before the dawn. Whoever said that most recently. I'm afraid it's going to get a little darker yet. But I'm hoping the dawn is going to be a little brighter. This is a historic moment. It's not just that we went from a novel virus sleeping from a bat to a human, to vaccine in 10 months. It's that we went from that new virus to a vaccine campaign in about a year. It's amazing.

BOLDUAN: There are still questions, though, after the big meeting, the long meeting yesterday of the vaccine advisory board. There are still some questions about what people with severe food and drug allergies should do after we learned of these allergic reactions in a couple of people in the United Kingdom to the vaccine. I want to play for you what Dr. Paul Offit said about this during the vaccine meeting yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFIT: There are tens of millions of people in this country who carry EpiPens with them because they have peanut allergies, because they have egg allergies, who are going to believe now that they can't get this vaccine. That's a lot of people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: It is a lot of people. What do you think should happen here?

BRILLIANT: There's a tradeoff between speed and being comprehensive. We really don't know about pregnant women. We don't know about people who are immunocompromised. We don't know about age groups and different demographic groups. We're getting that data as we go. We don't even know, what is it better one dose if we only have a scarce amount of vaccine distributed to more people or wait for two doses for everyone even though that's what Pfizer recommends.

These are experiments that will have to go on simultaneous with the vaccination program. But that's not unusual. In the smallpox program and polio program, the campaign went on side by side with hundreds of experiments.

BOLDUAN: In your perspective on that is actually extremely important because we are -- people are playing closer attention to a vaccine advisory board meeting than they probably ever have in the history of these meetings. And we're hearing these things like the lead on the advisory board said this morning on CNN, there's some concern, they don't -- he doesn't think there's enough data of the age range between 16 and 18 quite yet. He has questions. And I'm left wondering if I'm the parent of a 16 to 18-year-old, what do I do when this becomes available?

BRILLIANT: Yes. You might have to wait. And if you want to get the complete data. The FDA may recommend that until all that data is in, they either will recommend against. They'll recommend for or they won't take a stand.

There will be ambiguity. It is the trade-off. But my gosh, I'd rather be in the position we're in right now than try to dot all the I's and cross all the T's.

The biggest concern you have is that there's not something awful waiting like the (INAUDIBLE) disease. Following the swine flu vaccine in 1978. And all indications so far are there are not, but we've only had vaccine in the arm of tens of thousands of people. It's going to go to hundreds of thousands, hundreds of millions and ultimately billions of people. So, we have a long way ahead of us, but this is still a momentous day.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Brilliant, thank you for coming on.

BRILLIANT: Thank you, Kate. Thank you for having me.

BOLDUAN: I really sincerely appreciate it.

We mentioned the Supreme Court lawsuit at the top of the show. Now President Trump's continued efforts to overturn the results of the election is getting the full support from a clear majority of Republicans in the House.

We're going to scroll through this list for you. But it's 106 House Republicans now backing a lawsuit that originated from Texas. The Texas attorney general that wants the Supreme Court to throw out the votes of millions of Americans in four battleground states that the president lost. This morning, Texas filed its reply to the Supreme Court defending its lawsuit. So, we really are standing by to see what the high court decides. Let me bring in CNN's John Harwood. He's live at the White House for more on this.

John, when you look at that list, this is more than half of the Republicans in the House and to be clear, there are members on this list backing the lawsuit who were elected in the very states that they want to see the presidential votes thrown out in. They're not questioning their own election wins, though.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They're not. But what we're seeing, Kate, is a demonstration by House Republicans of the extent of the rot inside the Republican Party right now.

[11:10:01]

These people know what Donald Trump is, as Ted Cruz said in 2016, he's a pathological liar. Marco Rubio called him a con artist. But because they're afraid of him and afraid of the supporters that he holds the loyalty of and because the only principle that matters to them is holding onto power. They've agreed to sign on to this preposterous lawsuit aimed at the throwing out the votes in other states, in four battleground states.

Kate, these are people who if Donald Trump said I'm going to trash you on Twitter unless you go smack your mom in the face. They would go smack their moms in the face and try to explain it to them afterwards. In reality, what they're doing is smacking American Democracy in the face.

BOLDUAN: It's pretty remarkable. I just don't see a universe where this changes in 40 days when the president leaves office.

HARWOOD: No, it's not going to change. I mean, the occupant of the White House is going to change. Donald Trump is going to leave. We'll see whether or not being president diminishes his grip on them, those members or his followers.

He's going to have a lot of problems. We learned today about a criminal investigation in New York City by Cy Vance is accelerating. He's interviewing Trump's bankers and insurance brokers. So, Trump may have plenty of problems that will cause the Republican Party to be less afraid of him, but we don't know that yet.

BOLDUAN: John, thank you.

Still ahead for us, millions of Americans desperately need coronavirus relief, but Congress is paralyzed. Why can't they work out a deal?

Plus, President-elect Joe Biden, he will soon introduce more top-level nominees but he's facing some criticism that some of the faces may be too familiar.

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[11:16:09] BOLDUAN: President-elect Joe Biden is set to announce more key members of his cabinet later today. A quick look for you at Biden's current cabinet, the nominees so far. And you will see some familiar faces who also served in the Obama administration. Leaving some Democrats quietly saying now that these appointments are a little too familiar. Looking more like a third Obama term.

Let's go over to CNN's Jessica Dean. She's joining us right now with more on this.

Jessica, how is the Biden campaign responding to this pushback?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're told that Biden is not feeling defensive about his choices at all. And in fact, the Biden team would tell you that look, there's a couple of things going on here.

They're facing a multitude of crises as Biden assumes office in January and they need people who know how to work government. They need people who understand how to pull the levers and make things happen because they don't have any time to waste and they're going to have to do a lot of things, big things at once in order to get the crises under control and that's before they even get to some of the agenda setting that they want to do with other things outside the scope of just getting the coronavirus and the economy under control. So, that's one thing. They're looking for experience.

We also know that Joe Biden really likes people and trusts people that he has long relationships with. And that's really important to him and we're seeing that in a lot of those picks that you just put up. These are people he has long standing working relationships with that he can trust to go do their jobs. And that's important to him as well.

They'll also tell you that this is still a historic slate of nominees and appointees. It's something they're very proud of. It's something that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris promised to do, put together a cabinet that looks like America. And that's what they've been trying to do even though they've also gotten a lot of pushback and pressure from outside groups for more diversity.

So, that's kind of how they're looking at everything. We're going to be introduced to a new round of nominees and appointees later this afternoon and among those are a number of Obama administration veterans.

You have Denis McDonough who's going to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs and he was Obama's chief of staff. Tom Vilsack who served as the Agriculture secretary for the entirety of Obama's administration has been tapped to go back in and do that yet again. So yes, it is a lot of familiar faces where some Democrats were hopping to inject more fresh blood into there. But we will hear more about those nominees and appointees later this afternoon.

This is all happening as we're told Biden would like to get this complete, like to have his full slate of nominees by Christmas. We know his timelines can shift a little bit but right now that's the goal is to get everyone announced by Christmas so then they can focus on getting those nominees through the confirmation process and getting them settled in their roles as soon as possible.

One of the big ones, Kate, that we're still waiting on, probably the biggest one we're still waiting on, is who will be attorney general, who will lead the Department of Justice. We know that Biden has narrowed that down to a short list of contenders, including Senator Doug Jones and Sally Yates, as well as Judge Merrick Garland. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Jessica, thank you so much.

All right. Looking to Capitol Hill, Congress is paralyzed. Negotiations over a COVID-19 emergency relief package are on the brink of collapse with leaders from both parties now turning to the all too familiar position of pointing fingers. Sources tell CNN, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there is no path forward on two major sticking points, liability protection for businesses. Republicans want more broad -- the protections to be broader than Democrats do. There's also state and local aid, Democrats want much more than Republicans will allow.

But now this failure in negotiations is going to hurt even more. Some emergency benefits that have been keeping people afloat across the country expire at the end of the month.

[11:20:02]

Things like expanded unemployment benefits, eviction protection, extra paid family leave benefits, relief that millions of people have clearly relied on during the pandemic. These are some of the people who, frankly, Congress has failed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANGELA KEARNEY, FURLOUGHED FROM JOB DUE TO PANDEMIC: I have to take the bills and throw them up and pick the ones and hope that they total amount that I have.

KAREN SMITH, SINGLE MOTHER WHOSE UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS END DECEMBER 26: We stopped going to food banks because they're closing and they're far now. And we kind of -- if they open at 9:00 a.m. you have to be there at 5:00 a.m. to hope to get anything.

ROSE RODRIGUEZ, UNEMPLOYED MOTHER OF THREE: When we go to the laundromat, we see homeless washing themselves. And one day if I don't go back to work, I'm going to be one of them. I live check by check but now it's not checks. It's box. Box and I have to stretch out for seven days.

DYLAN GARCIA, UNEMPLOYED PARENT OF THREE: Makes you feel like a failure as a parent, a man to know you can't provide for your family.

JESSICA LUSK, UNEMPLOYED PARENT OF THREE: It's like I don't even deserve my own kid.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BOLDUAN: That's heartbreaking.

Joining me right now, once again is former Republican Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, who's also a senior CNN political commentator. Thanks for coming back in. Let's pick up where we left off, because this is what we were getting to, Governor -- you look upset. Why are you upset?

JOHN KASICH, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, these are people that can't pay their bills and they want to. The stories of these people in a car, Kate, waiting four hours to get food at a food bank. Yes, it breaks my heart because -- I don't know, it's because maybe I -- I thank the Lord that I can kind of think about them and realize that, you know, they deserve better.

I mean, and yes, we also can help -- demand that the government provide some aid, which they should do. But maybe we need to think what we can do, even if it's a little bit of stuff that we can do for somebody else.

I mean, think about this. These are people, maybe in the gig economy, they lost their jobs. They got no food. I mean, what -- could you imagine that? They have no food. Says here the homeless are washing themselves - I mean, you know, it was a lot of controversy when I expanded Medicaid, I was the first Republican governor to do it.

And people were mad, you love Obama, whatever. I said, wait a minute, there's 600,000 people that if I don't do this, they're not going to get healthcare, they're going to be living under a bridge or in jail. And we can't treat people like that.

And remember the great biblical quote about did you feed the -- did you feed the neighbor? Because if you didn't feed the neighbor, you didn't feed me. That's the word from the Lord.

And when I look at this, it just -- it makes you want to cry, right? And then you got people in D.C., and they're fighting with one another and it's you know -- look, I've been in many negotiations. I was there when two government shutdowns.

BOLDUAN: Right.

KASICH: But at some point, when some point, when it's something that's got people on the line, their lives and when they don't get these kinds of things, Kate, think about what happens to them from the mental health aspect, the psychological aspect. You heard the guy say it's like I'm not even a man because I can't feed my family.

So, what's failed to happen down there is, take off the title, take off all that phony armor and think about what people need. And sometimes you got to make a little compromise that you don't like to have to make. But so, what, in the long run, people are better off. And that's what we got to do. That doesn't mean compromise your principles - but you know -

(CROSSTALK) BOLDUAN: This is why this is so - this is why this is so frustrating. It is good to see you wear your heart on your sleeve. It is good to see blood coursing through your veins that you feel for these people. But that's what I don't get, these people live in every state.

These people are the constituents of every member of Congress. This isn't one region that was hit by a hurricane that needs some help. This is everywhere. And that's why it's so unbelievable that they can't find a place, find how to get to yes, you've been in the halls of Congress. What do you say to the leaders?

KASICH: I could have been better.

BOLDUAN: Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, like, what do you say to them right now?

KASICH: You got to think -- you know, here's part of the problem, Kate. So, you're down there in Congress, right? Everybody know -- the guards know who your name is. To go through the door, they open the door for you, Congressman this, senator this, you don't have to go through any kind of X-ray machine because you're important.

You wear a badge and then you go up on the floor and the people sit up in the gallery and they watch you, you know. And you're up -- and they're up there and you're down here, and you're important, and people get out of your way and they tell you what you want to hear.

[11:25:03]

But there's an element of that that takes you away. And I'm not trying to be mean here about anybody. It takes you away from understanding the problems. The real problems that real people have.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: There's no way they can't - I mean --

KASICH: It's sort of like they're removed, Kate.

BOLDUAN: -- if they - but Governor, if they don't understand the problems with the pandemic, then they should walk off the job right now. I mean this is not a hard one.

KASICH: There's a difference between -- I'm making excuse for them. There's a difference between understanding there's a problem and seeing it. Putting yourself in the shoes of somebody that doesn't have anything. In order to get this deal done, and I think they will. And I want to salute the problem solver caucus.

BOLDUAN: You really do. You think they're going to?

KASICH: I think they're going to have to. I think in order to get the government to stay open, I think they'll get something. I think something will happen. And these problem solvers, this is a kind of rump group of Republican - of House members and senators who are sitting down trying to work things out. One of the leaders, a guy named Tom Reed, I think very highly of him. He's a Republican. I know that there are people of good hearts who want to work through these issues, the liability issues, aid to state and local.

I had talked to a senator not long ago -- back in the beginning of the stimulus package, how many weeks do we give them a payment? And I'm the guy that balanced the budget with my friends. I mean, there's nothing that I care about more than the fiscal health of our country and the debt is rising. It's terrible. It could inflict us. But at the same time, Kate, we got to help these people. They're going to lose their homes, they're hungry, their families are distraught. We got to do it. Please.

BOLDUAN: I know -- we never have enough time, Governor, but I know -- and Tom Reed is -- we've had him on the show often. He and problem solvers, they might - they might be - they are working in good faith but they're not going to get anything done unless they have --

(CROSSTALK)

KASICH: They might.

BOLDUAN: They're not, though, unless they have the leadership who just get past it --

KASICH: Sometimes -

BOLDUAN: And get to a yes.

KASICH: Sometimes the leaders -- Kate, sometimes the leaders stand aside, and they let other people kind of solve it and then they embrace it.

BOLDUAN: Good.

KASICH: That's what I hope will happen.

BOLDUAN: Stand aside.

KASICH: We got to keep on the story, please.

BOLDUAN: The message from John Kasich is stand aside. Let the problem solvers actually solve the problem. Governor, let's continue the conversation. Thank you for coming on.

KASICH: Thanks, Kate, very much.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, it is a delicate operation, handle, store, administer the first coronavirus vaccines. How one hospital is preparing down to the minute, next.

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