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CDC Vaccine Advisers Vote To Recommend Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine In The U.S.; Richard Smith, FedEx Regional President Of The Americas & Executive V.P. Of Global Support, Discusses Shipping The COVID-19 Vaccine; Trump Raised Prospect Of Firing A.G. Bill Barr In Meeting Friday; Supreme Court Rejects Trump's And Texas' Bid To Overturn Election; Chances of Congress Reaching Stimulus Deal Before Christmas Slim. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired December 12, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:01]

JOHN AVLON, CNN HOST: Coy, thank you.

Now, thank you for joining me today. I'm John Avlon. CNN NEWSROOM continues with Ana Cabrera right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York, and we are witnessing history today. You might call it a medical miracle.

Just moments ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory committee on immunization practices voted to recommend the Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and older. So this is the second to last step after the FDA issue an emergency use authorization for this COVID-19 vaccine in record time. It is the fastest a vaccine has ever been developed.

Remember back in April? Medical experts said that even 18 months was optimistic, a blink in vaccine years, here we are in the 12th month of the year that has really turned all of our lives upside down with a safe, effective vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.

Now, tomorrow is when the shipping begins, we are told, with the doses headed to America's most vulnerable citizens. And even though it will be months before the general public can roll up their sleeves, this could not have come at a more crucial time. Yesterday was another record pressure, more than 108,000 people are hospitalized. Another 3,300 lives lost to the coronavirus.

We're at the point where it is a mass casualty event day after day. Some communities are now feeling the impact of the post-Thanksgiving surge. And officials say the upcoming Christmas holiday will bring another surge. We have every angle of this vaccine breakthrough covered today.

I want to begin CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, you have been with us from the beginning. Here we are. Take us inside this recent vote just moments ago that the CDC advisory committee. What does this mean? DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, Ana, first of all, a big day, I mean, just a really important day. I just remember taking a breath last night after hearing about the emergency use authorization. Like you, I didn't think we would have this conversation this year.

What this vote now means that the vaccine is authorized by the FDA, now it gets recommended by the CDC. It is in part procedural but it's in part also to try and really understanding the who, what, when of this whole thing, who should be getting this the vaccine, what the distribution schedule is going to be specifically. We know there are two shots separated by three weeks. Are there groups of people who should not be getting this vaccine? These are the specifics that we're going to hear from the CDC. It is what they voted on.

One example I can tell you quickly was the age of people who should be getting this. You may remember, Ana, there were back and forth, should it be 18 and older or should it be 16 and older, which is what the FDA authorized. It sounds like the CDC is going to say 16 and older as well. So we will see what the final sorts of decisions are and we will hear from Dr. Redfield soon. A pretty big day and it looks like this is all going to be happening now.

CABRERA: An FDA official said this vaccine, this emergency use authorization, holds a promise to alter the course of this pandemic. Do you think -- is that an overstatement? How do you see it?

GUPTA: No, I think it is true. I mean, you know, sometimes we forget just how much impact vaccines have had overall in our lives in a number of diseases, a number of deaths that they have prevented over time. But this is a vaccine that dramatically decreases the likelihood that someone will get sick, develop serious symptoms or die from COVID-19.

I mean, you just showed these horrendous graphs. That is why we're going to see the impact the earliest. It's just on death rates. Because it is still not clear, as you know, Ana, that this actually stops people from getting infected. But if the real question is does it stop people from getting sick, does it stop people from being -- as likely to be hospitalized or dying, the answer is yes. I mean, it is pretty clear from the data that the things you want a vaccine for, this vaccine does.

CABRERA: So, it's the distinction of will it stop the spread in? We don't necessarily know. But if it can stop people from getting severely ill, then that obviously makes a huge difference in the quality of life and the ability to get this pandemic somewhat under control.

When would somebody get the first shots now?

GUPTA: I think it's going to be in the next few days, probably. We saw obviously people getting those first shots in the U.K. We're going to see similar scenes, I think, Ana, play out here in the United States on Monday, Tuesday. It is unclear. We know that the vaccine will start to get distributed, as you pointed out, within the next day. And so hospitals are going to receive shipments in some states, long- term care facilities, we know, are at the beginning of the line and various pharmacies are going to help administer the shots in these places.

[15:05:06]

I will say this, Ana. It is a huge distribution and logistical challenge. It may feel disjointed for people. The priorities in one state may be different than the priorities in the neighboring state. So, you may qualify at the front of the line in one state and then just go over the border and it may be different. So that may feel disjointed because we don't have a -- there's not a specific national sort of plan for this. Each state is sort of handling it on their own. Operation Warp Speed gets the vaccines to the and the states are going to take it from there.

CABRERA: And, obviously, supply and demand is still a huge issue, so life isn't going to change, as we know it, overnight. HHS Secretary Alex Azar says 3 million doses will be sent out first.

Now, 3 million is a lot but it is not the tens of millions that they have been talking about before the end of the month. What does this number indicate to you?

GUPTA: Well, we -- so here is how they got the number. There are 6.4 million Pfizer doses that have already been manufactured. They manufactured those at risk, right? They manufactured those before knowing that they were going to get this emergency use authorization. Now that they have it, they're going to increase the manufacturing.

I spoke to Albert Bourla, who is the CEO of Pfizer, and it is roughly 4 to 5 million doses a week they're going to be manufacturing. Hopefully, they'll continue to scale that up. They also kind of, Moderna possibly getting an -- the emergency use authorization, having the similar sort of scale.

So when do all the math there on that, that is when you get to the 40 million doses potentially by the end of the year, by the end of this month. That is 20 million people, because they get two doses each.

So, for Pfizer, what they did was they said, okay, 6.5 million doses, we're going to take 500,000 doses, put them in a stock supply, now we got 6 million, we're going to give half now, that is the 3 million, and we're keeping half in the freezers and we're going to give those in two to three weeks for people to get the second dose. That is the plan right now.

And as soon as more doses get manufactured, they're going to start rolling out. You are used, and I'm used to having a situation where we have lots of stock supply, you know, and then they just sort of distribute from that stock supply. Here, because we're in the middle of the pandemic, as soon as things will be manufactured, they're going to be distributed almost right away.

CABRERA: Which might be actually beneficial given also the challenges of storing this particular vaccine because of how extremely cold it has to be stored at.

This vaccine, it was developed in record time using the groundbreaking technology. And so, I think, Sanjay, as a doctor, you likely hear that and you think what an achievement. But a layman might hear this and think I don't want to be a guinea pig. Help us understand why a vaccine created in months versus years and using this technology that has never been used before in a vaccine is deemed safe.

GUPTA: Yes. No, I think it's a really fair question. I was having this conversation with my own family last night around the dinner table. So everyone is asking this. First of all, the technology has never been used before, you are right, but some of the scientific basis for this actually started a long time ago after SARS.

And the idea of creating vaccines this way as people have been thinking about this over a decade, you've got to think about this vaccine more like you would think about a computer code rather than a vaccine in a sense that you are basically finding a little bit of code of a portion of the virus and you are giving it to someone and you're basically asking the body to respond to that little piece of code.

The biggest question, I think, as I talked to researchers over this past year, Ana, was would it work? Would this work? It sounds like an interesting idea but would it work? So when they got the results back, those initial results back from this data monitoring safety board and it said 95 percent, everyone, I think, was really surprised, even the CEO of Pfizer. They had a good idea that it would work, but that was really impressive.

The second part is that the trials were done and the appropriate amount of time to determine safety, they gave that as well. They find that most adverse events, if they are going to occur, occur within the first two months, actually within the first 42 days.

That's where they got that two-month safety period from, all that say, Ana, that while it seems very fast, it was based on technology that has been developed for some time, the overall efficacy and safety sort of criteria are still being met.

CABRERA: Okay. A lot of people feel like they know you, that you are the trusted voice for so many Americans. To be clear, you feel that this is safe. You would feel comfortable getting the vaccine, you would feel comfortable with your family getting it?

GUPTA: Yes, I would. And my parents are in their late 70s, they live in Florida. They have been hermits, like a lot of people for this past year. And we talked late last night after the EUA was granted and they asked me the same thing, and I said, yes, absolutely. They will be probably ahead in line compared to me because they are older and they have pre-existing conditions. But I would recommend it for my own mother and father.

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And I've looked at this data. And, again, I think it's good to apply a skeptical eye to things, which I've done. And there is all sorts of specific criteria that maybe certain who this is not going to be best for. We can talk about that. But for my parents, for myself, absolutely, I would take it.

CABRERA: And so let's talk about that quickly, if you will. Who do you think should maybe wait?

GUPTA: So, the trial really did not include people under the age of 16. So, you know, people obviously might think about their kids. We don't have data on people under the age of 16 yet. That data is still being collected. So this vaccine will not be recommended for people of that age.

For pregnant women, it was interesting, Ana, pregnant women were not part of the trial. 23 women became pregnant during the trial, so there is a little bit of data but not enough. Now, what this FDA said and the CDC says specifically is they say, we're not going to say, don't take it, we're going to say we don't have enough data to suggest it is effective and we don't have anything to suggest that it is not safe. Talk to your health care provider if you are working in high-risk profession, for example.

And if you are working in an area where there's a lot of COVID and you are pregnant, you may still want to consider taking it. They're probably going to recommend people who have had serious allergies to things in the past serious enough that they carry an EpiPen, they should not take it. You saw some of the news, I'm sure, Ana, that came out of the U.K.

And then people who have certain conditions that make them immunocompromised, it's probably going to be a discussion with their health care provider.

The real concern there, Ana, is less about safety and more about this idea that if your immune system is not working as robustly, it may not generate the antibody response. So it is a question of the vaccine just not doing the job as well in someone who is immunocompromised. But that sort of gives you an idea of how they might start to parse down this vaccine. But none of that suggests that it's not safe or effective, just that it may work better for certain groups.

CABRERA: OK. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, it's so good to have you here. Thank you.

Now, within the next 48 hours, health care workers will be among those receiving the very first doses of this groundbreaking vaccine. We're going to go live to a hospital gearing up for vaccinations right after this.

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CABRERA: We're back with our breaking news. The CDC advisory committee on immunization practices has voted to recommend the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine for people aged 16 and older. Now, CDC vaccine advisers have previously designated to priority groups to receive these first doses, residents of long-term care facilities and frontline workers. So what will that vaccination process actually look like?

Let's go to CNN's Adrienne Broaddus. She is live from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. And hospital staff there, I know, are preparing to distribute the first doses of the Pfizer vaccine. So, Adrienne, walk us through the set up they have and their plan.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, the health care workers who are most at risk for contracting the virus will receive the vaccine in one of these vaccine bays. They have ten here. The hospital has transformed this lobby into a vaccine clinic for employees.

Behind us over here, I want to direct your attention to the vaccine prep area. You notice sunlight can get through right now but that's going to change in the next hour. Rush staff learned earlier this morning the vaccine is sensitive to light. So engineers came up with a plan to block light from getting in. This is another step to help maintain the integrity of the vaccine.

I spoke with a clinical pharmacist who is going to administer that first shot. Here is what he had to say about the process.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- how big this process is going to be. It is finally here. It is real. It is turning into a very nice, full-sized clinic. And so it will be -- it's one of those things I'm excited, to be able to have the opportunity to vaccinate so many people. It also is a little mind-boggling how this process is going to work where we have so many plans in place and different people working on different aspects of it. But, really, I think this clinic will run smoothly. It is just a matter of getting it going.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: And during the initial phase, Rush hopes to vaccine 200 employees, again, those employees who are most at risk. And as they continue with the process, the goal is to vaccinate up to 1,000 people per day. Ana?

CABRERA: Okay. Adrienne, it is an exciting time, thank you for showing us a little bit about what people can expect.

I want to bring in Dr. Peter Hotez now. He is global health specialist and Dean of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Hotez, you have been doing this type of work for decades. Help put this moment into perspective for us.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: I mean, it is an extraordinary time. And one of the things I always like point out is when people say this vaccine was rushed, it's actually the culminating event of more 70 years of research and development. After the original SARS, we call COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-2 coronavirus after the SARS virus in 2003. The NIH supported a very robust program of vaccine development for coronavirus.

And so all of the information gained over the last 17 years was used to apply to this. We began working on coronavirus vaccines. They showed the spike protein is the weak link in the virus and how you make an immune response to the spike protein, all the different delivery mechanisms.

So, in some ways, this year, as dramatic as it sounds, it is really the culminating event of a much longer period of time. And so for those of us who have been in this for a long time, it is a very heartfelt moment.

CABRERA: And we all got a little peek behind the curtain of the vaccine development process this week during the meetings with the advisory committees. And the head of the vaccine research and development of Pfizer told the FDA advisory panel that they actually looked at four different vaccine candidates in phase one of their trial, and this is what she says they considered to end up with the current vaccine.

Quote, with regard to safety, we were looking for the most favorable safety and tolerability profile in both younger and older adults. With regard to immunogenicity, we were looking for the broadest antiviral immune responses most likely associated with efficacy. And with regard to a rapid pandemic response, we are looking for the candidate that could be developed and produced most efficiently.

So, knowing that, how much confidence should that give Americans?

HOTEZ: Well, this is the way Operation Warp Speed worked. It was about getting as many shots on goal as possible. Not only -- because knew we had to target the spike protein. We knew what our goal was in terms of inducing those virus-neutralizing antibodies. The question then became which technology would do it the most efficiently and the most -- and with greatest speed, as well without sacrificing safety.

So I think the way this was structured was very clever in many ways. The idea was, well, look, RNA vaccines are the quickest we can make as you can make a piece of RNA very quickly and we can evaluate multiple different doses and formulations of the RNA vaccines. In the meantime, we'll start that pipeline of other vaccines that are slower to develop.

And then, look, because the other ones may have characteristics later on, that might also prove beneficial in terms of length of protection. We don't know how long the RNA vaccines are going to protect.

So this is a way to produce multiple approaches to making a vaccine and then evaluating each one as they come along. And so six months from now, we may have a different view of the vaccines that are the best in terms of strength or long lasting protection. So that is why we are getting the adenovirus vaccines up. So we'll have first Moderna as an mRNA, two adenovirus vaccines, a particle vaccine. It's almost dizzying, the array of different technologies. We have a recombinant protein vaccine. So, the point is, Ana, don't wait for any vaccine that you can get because we're not going to know for another six months or a year which one is absolutely the best. But the best way to keep yourself out of the intensive care unit in the hospitals to get those virus- neutralizing antibodies into your system as soon as you can, and that's what all of these vaccines are going to do. So this is why you need to get your vaccination as it's deemed appropriate for you to do so.

CABRERA: As soon as possible. This is just the beginning of the end to this long journey we've all been. Dr. Peter Hotez, thank you, as always, for being with us and for your

expertise. We appreciate all you do.

HOTEZ: Thank you.

CABRERA: Now, the first vaccine shipments were supposed to begin within 24 hours of the FDA's authorization. But now, we're told the vaccine won't be sent out until tomorrow. Why? We're going to take you live to Pfizer's facility, next.

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[15:25:00]

CABRERA: Pfizer says it expects to begin shipping the very first doses of its vaccine tomorrow and CNN's Pete Muntean is at a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Pete, these shipments were supposed to begin, we were told, at least within 24 hours of the FDA authorization. That happened last night. And yet these shipments aren't beginning until tomorrow. So why the apparent delay, when exactly will they start and what will that process be like?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, still not totally clear, Ana. We know from the federal government that all of the parts and pieces are in place. Still, Pfizer insists that vaccine shipments will begin leaving here starting tomorrow morning.

What's so interesting is that we know this spot is critical to the vaccine distribution network. This is Pfizer's largest facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Operation Warp Speed says vaccine will leave here direct for 600 individual locations. Those are places like hospitals, pharmacies, CVS and Walgreens.

Operation Warp Speed says the vaccine will arrive at those places starting on Monday. But, really, the bulk of the shipments will come in on Tuesday. It is UPS and FedEx who are carrying those packages. UPS is responsible for the east, FedEx is responsible for the western half of the country. And Operation Warp Speed says this is a massive, coordinated effort.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end of the day, we have an excellent plan that has been well-coordinated, well-synchronized, well-rehearsed and well-collaborated with everybody from the total government through commercial industry down through the governors at the states. I am very confident in it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Now, this is not just a ground game, Ana, also a big air operation. The FAA is directing airports to be ready for vaccine shipments regardless of whether or not they were already expecting them. The FAA tells airports that they should have priority access for delivery trucks, also step up their security there. This could be the beginning of the end for this pandemic but this is just the start of a massive movement here in Michigan.

CABRERA: A movement that is not going to be easy, that's for sure. Pete Muntean, thank you for that update.

So, once the vaccine starts leaving that Pfizer facility there in Kalamazoo, the shipments will head about an hour north to a FedEx distribution center in Grand Rapids.

For the delivery, I want to talk about that with Richard Smith, he is the regional president of the Americas and executive vice president for FedEx. Richard, I can only imagine how stressful this time might be and yet how exciting this time might be for you. Thank you for taking a moment to be with us.

Obviously, time is of the essence. So why are we looking at a longer timeline for mobilizing at least? Why not within 24 hours of the FDA decision?

RICHARD SMITH, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, FEDEX: Well, absolutely. We can deliver it within 24 hours but the decision was made by the team that because there are hundreds of administration sites they're going to be receiving these.

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They thought it best we wait until Monday to deliver them to ensure they are all open and ready to receive.

So a weekday, normal business day, seemed like the optimal time to ship out rather than on Sunday when some of these administrative sites might be short staffed or not open.

CABRERA: So, to try to drill down a little more specifically on timing, what does a Sunday morning rollout for the distribution now mean for delivery times?

SMITH. Sure. They're packing out the shipments now. We will pick them up and UPS will pick up theirs as well, going to different states.

You heard General Perna say earlier today, it is not an east/west split, per se. There are designated states and metropolitan areas for UPS and FedEx. It is equal distribution. It is not a clean east/west split.

But we'll pick up our packages going to states and metropolitan areas that were designated to us. UPS will do the same. We will move through the network.

Ours is an integrated air-ground system. They'll be flown to a hub, sort, go back out on the outbound aircraft to the destination market, be unloaded and taken off the ramp or to a station where it will be delivered into the field to the administrative sites waiting on the vaccines Monday morning.

CABRERA: There are a lot of steps to this. It is a logistical challenge. Probably one they will write case studies on later because it is so complex.

How do you address some of the challenges, like the freezing temperatures for vaccine and the timeline for mobilization?

SMITH: Sure. Our chairman and founder, Fred Smith, did a case study on this when he created Federal Express in 1973 in the hub and spoke network to allow you to service these destination pairs, including every zip code in the United States of America. This is what we were designed to do.

We have taken to saying this year, as we played such a big role in the fight of COVID to date, getting PPE and other critical supplies out to our brave health care workers on the frontlines.

This is who we are and what we do every day. It's what we were designed to do.

In terms of the cold chain, that is on the packaging side to protect the vaccine itself. Pfizer has a packaging that will keep it at temperature for several days.

We're being asked to do what we do every day, which is deliver things rapidly and reliably overnight. Again, it's what our network was designed to do.

We have cold-chain infrastructure, in the event of delays and we have to stage something. If things are moving smoothly, we don't expect to use it.

The monitoring and tracking and positive control of these shipments and knowing where they are in our network at all times is far more important. We have deployed some new technology for that as well for that.

CABRERA: What kind of new technology?

SMITH: I'm glad you asked. Because I brought it with me. This is our Sense Aware I.D. Bluetooth low-energy. It's a patented Bluetooth low- energy tag and solution. We lit up the entire network to read these tags.

When we pick up our packages, our couriers affix these to every box in a pouch. We will be able to know where they are at all times.

We'll have our priority alert agents monitoring them in a platform we call FedEx Surround, which is a predictive analytics platform we developed in collaboration with Microsoft.

We are rolling this out for this vaccine distribution effort. We announced both those things Surround and Sensor I.D. earlier this fall.

That will give us positive control, eyes on every shipment, our guardian angel, so to speak, and our priority alert command center will be watching them.

And if there's any sort of delay or unforeseen weather event, on-road delay, they jump into action to recover that shipment and ensure that it gets delivered.

CABRERA: Because of the sensitivity of these vaccines and the types of conditions they have to be stored in, I know UPS said they have technology that monitors atmospheric pressure in the cargo and these specific packages in addition to the temperatures, as well as the amount of light that is reaching some of these.

Do you have ways to keep track of all of that?

SMITH: I think what you may be referring to Pfizer putting data loggers in these boxes so they can see -- make sure it was maintained at temperature and other environmental factors inside the box.

Ours goes on the outside. It is something we use for proprietary to us to track packages in our system and have positive control and eyes on them at all times.

What Pfizer is putting into these boxes will give them that type of information around the environmentals, particularly the temperature that they are concerned about.

As long as the box is sealed, they feel very confident with this packaging solution that it will keep the product at temperature, at the appropriate ultra-cold temperature for many days.

CABRERA: Quickly, if you will, any additional challenges because it is the holidays and you have to ship a lot of Christmas packages?

[15:34:59]

SMITH: We do. We have seen a huge surge in e-commerce this year due to the lockdowns and COVID-19. We have taken to calling this peak ship-a- thon. We think it will be the most substantial peak in our history.

The good thing is we have been preparing for this for many years.

You might notice, on the road, you see FedEx ground trucks and FedEx's express trucks. We have different operating companies designed for different things.

We've made tremendous investments in our FedEx ground network to handle all of the retail and surging online commerce orders that we have seen. Of course, we were preparing for e-commerce to be the future. And

COVID maybe accelerated us a little bit into the future in that regard.

But most of your Christmas presents will move in that ground system. Whereas, the express network, the original federal express founded in 1973, was designed for timed definite deliveries like, say, vaccines that are very temperature sensitive and critical.

CABRERA: Excellent.

Richard Smith, I appreciate your time and all of that great information. Thank you and best of luck.

SMITH: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

CABRERA: Still ahead, you are looking at President Trump now spending the afternoon at the Army/Navy game today. If you don't recognize him, you can tell he is the only one not wearing a mask. He is most recognizable there.

While the Supreme Court rejection means the president is likely out of election challenges, he still may be ready for another high-profile firing. What we're learning just ahead, live, from the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[15:40:31]

CABRERA: Right now, President Trump is attending the Army/Navy football game happening at West Point because of the coronavirus.

You see he is the only one maskless in the crowd of servicemembers. Although he did put on a mask, we're told, later in the game's first quarter.

It is the president's first public event since the Supreme Court last night rejected that long-shot attempt to overturn the election.

President Trump though still not letting up. CNN has now learned he is considering firing his top law enforcement official, an historically fierce loyalist, Attorney General Bill Barr.

We're told he raised the idea during a meeting just yesterday in which he was described as furious.

Ryan Lizza and Kirsten Powers are both CNN senior political analysts and join us now.

Kirsten, why fire the attorney general with 39 days left in office?

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Any other president would not do this, But, of course, there's little logic to anything that Donald Trump does.

I think it is just to, you know, try to pretend that somehow what the attorney general has done has been unfair to him because Donald Trump has always viewed the Department of Justice as his other than private law firm.

Many times, Bill Barr has been willing to do his bidding and, other times, he hasn't.

The president is very vindictive. Even though his term is essentially over, and will come to an end very soon, that doesn't necessarily impact his thinking.

CABRERA: We had the reporting previously that the president was upset after Bill Barr gave an interview saying there was no widespread election fraud.

So many other Republicans on Capitol Hill have been willing to do the president's bidding on this.

And 126 lawmakers, GOP lawmakers, specifically in the House, signed their names on the lawsuit that the Supreme Court struck down.

Ryan, are there Republicans regretting signing it today?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's a good question. I don't think so.

I think the way that some Republicans, who know better and know the lawsuit was garbage, the ones with just a basic understanding of the Constitution and the law, they did it for political reasons.

Because there was pressure to sign their name to this because it is a show of support for Donald Trump.

We have seen a lot of that over the last four years of Republicans trying to show fealty to the president by doing things that they -- they might not believe in.

So, I think a lot of them justified it by saying, look, the Supreme Court is not going to take this ridiculous case, but it is a good way to show the president -- or stay in the good graces of the president who will be active in Republican politics.

That's not a great reason to sign your name to a lawsuit that was as troubling as that one was. It was calling for the, you know, dismissal of millions of votes by Americans, Democrats and Republicans.

That's where we are in terms of the Republican Party these days and Donald Trump's hold over it.

CABRERA: Kirsten, if that is their thinking, if they knew this election lawsuit was dead on arrival, was this potentially political play and advantageous?

Where they savvy enough to think, if we're seen as loyal, then Trump supporters will be our supporters and they will be able to help energize their base for the next two-to-four years by running on the "this election was stolen" mantra? POWERS: I suppose that does appear to be the way they are thinking

about things. I think we have to be very clear about how wrong this is, how unethical it is, how irresponsible it is and how it is contrary to the oath they took when they took office.

There's been reporting -- Kaitlan Collins reported this. They felt this was sort of a loyalty test. But the loyalty test is really to the United States of America. That is where their true loyalty is supposed to reside.

[15:45:08]

Of course, in politics, sometimes people do things out of loyalty. They may vote for a health care bill that they were not 100 percent excited about because they want to be loyal to the president.

That is different here. You are sending a message to the voters. You are reinforcing the lie that the election has been stolen.

Because the average voter will look at that and say my Congress member signed on to that. Obviously look at the members of Congress who signed on to it, it must be legitimate.

They are fundamentally undermining democracy and doing this. There's no way to justify this in any way, shape or form.

If they lose office for not doing it, so be it. People sometimes lose their seat in office.

CABRERA: And yet, people are losing their livelihoods right now.

POWERS: Right.

CABRERA: They're losing lives. And the lawmakers on Capitol Hill are focused on the side shows that will not have an impact on the outcome of the election because that has been determined while there's, meantime, no stimulus agreement.

Democrats are demanding state and local funding, which is a big sticking point for Republicans. Republicans are pushing for business liability protections, which the Democrats are rejecting. They are both digging in.

Take a listen to both sides on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): In what universe should emergency aid for small businesses be contingent, contingent on massive bailouts to state governments with no linkage to actual needs?

Democrats are acting like it is more important to supply the governor of California with a special slush fund than to help health care workers in California keep their jobs.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Although those Republicans are open to voting for a check, the problem is they want something in exchange, right?

The thing they want that they want, that Republicans are asking for in exchange is something known as corporate liability protections. What's that? Corporate immunity.

What do corporations want immunity for? A lot of corporations want complete immunity from workers suing them for putting them in dangerous COVID conditions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Ryan, the American people need help now. Who will give?

LIZZA: You know, I don't know.

First of all, that debate with McConnell laying out the arguments and AOC laying out hers, it is, to me, a sigh of relief compared to what we were talking about, a completely fake manufactured debate about election fraud.

I know the bar is kind of low here. You know, just the fact they are having a debate over actual policy and something that is real and legitimate ideological difference, you know, rather than something that is completely made up by Trump and then politicians have to react to something that is fake.

I take your point, Ana. People have been struggling. This COVID relief is taking too long to get out the door.

The presidents -- normally, in our system, a president leads or pushes his party or says, I want X, Y, or Z. The president has been AWOL on this legislation, has not shown leadership. Instead, he has been talking about a fake election fraud.

So, I don't know. I don't know how it gets resolved.

You lose a lot of money over the last few months betting this bill would pass.

Sometimes Congress, when they are faced with end of the year deadlines and getting home for Christmas and New Year's, they magically resolve differences.

I think that is the best-case scenario, is the pressure of the holidays gets them to get something out the door.

CABRERA: It would be a Christmas present or whatever holiday you are celebrating for those people because there's so much suffering.

We have been talking about a man who will be homeless come January. He cannot pay his rent.

We've been talking about a mom of five who is deciding between the lights staying on and buying Christmas presents for children and on food stamps and barely getting by with the school free meals provided for her family. It is so tremendous, the need that's out there. Congress has to get

their act together.

Ryan Lizza and Kirsten Powers, good to have your perspectives. Thank you both.

We'll be right back.

LIZZA: Thanks, Ana.

[15:49:53]

POWERS: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: It's the 14th annual "CNN Heroes: AN ALL-START TRIBUTE," saluting the people who put others first. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: It's been a year of challenges and change, but it's also been a year of hope.

(SINGING)

ANNOUNCER: This year's CNN Heroes is a celebration of everyday people doing extraordinary acts doing two of the biggest stories of 2020.

Join Anderson Cooper, Kelly Ripa, and celebrity guests.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Tonight is about hope. It is about decency and it is about compassion.

ANNOUNCER: And a salute to people who keep our spirits lifted.

(SINGING)

[15:55:06]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to see the world differently.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Anyone can have impact, no matter their age.

(SINGING)

ANNOUNCER: Plus, viewers' choice for this year's most inspiring moment. And a special musical performance by Tony, Grammy and Emmy winner, Cynthia Erivo.

"CNN HEROES: AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE," Sunday at 8:00 on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: This is going to be a powerful show this year, especially given everything we've been through. Join Anderson Cooper and Kelly Ripa for "CNN HEROES: AN ALL-START TRIBUTE." It starts tomorrow night at 8:00 Eastern.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)