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First Vaccine Doses to Arrive in All 50 U.S. States Today; New York Hospitals Prepare to receive First Vaccine Shipments; Electoral College Votes Today to Confirm Biden Win; The Impact of Latino, Hispanic Voters on the Election; Authorities Investigating Security Breach of Government Networks. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired December 14, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're just so excited. I mean, we're watching on the news and we jumped in the car, and said we're going to get down here right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's all coming from west Michigan.

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Excitement builds over a historic moment. Coronavirus vaccines are on their way, expected to be delivered across the United States in the next few hours.

And, making official, the Electoral College meets to affirm the results of the U.S. election and seal Donald Trump's defeat. The outgoing president though is still in denial.

And the U.S. Commerce Department says it's been the victim of a data breach, an attack that been believed to be linked to Russia.

Live from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to all of you, our viewers here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber, this is CNN NEWSROOM.

We're now just hours away from the delivery of the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine here in the U.S., and before the day is done the vaccine should be distributed to locations in all 50 states. Just a short time ago, we saw a shipment arrive by FedEx at Los Angeles International Airport and UPS says its first deliveries are expected in just four hours from now.

The hope is health care workers can immediately begin administering the shots later today. Now these developments come one day after the U.S. marked a new record for hospitalizations, more than 109,000, and the U.S. is now nearing 300,000 COVID-19 deaths as states brace for continued surge in new cases.

CNN's Pete Muntean has more from a vaccine distribution center in Michigan.

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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What a moment, especially considering the fact that we only first learned of this virus less than a year ago, and now the vaccine is leaving from here.

This spot is critical to the vaccine distribution network. This is Pfizer's largest facility just outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan. And what's so interesting is the trucks carrying the vaccine, from UPS and FedEx, left here 8:30 Sunday morning, in those trucks, 189 boxes of the Pfizer vaccine, 975 miles to a box, 5 doses per vial. Now hundreds of thousands of doses are being delivered throughout the country.

The lion's share of the deliveries begins on Monday morning. The bulk of them, though, later on Tuesday. They're going to 600 individual locations, according to Operation Warp Speed. Those are places like hospitals and pharmacies, CVS and Walgreens. And Pfizer's head of global supply says this was months in the making.

MIKE MCDERMOTT, PRESIDENT, PFIZER GLOBAL SUPPLY: I couldn't be more confident in the distribution of the vaccine. We've worked incredibly hard over many months, doing test shipments, improving our shippers, making sure that they can maintain temperature during the entire journey, and we're very happy with the solution.

MUNTEAN (on camera): This is not just a ground game; also a major air operation. Trucks left here, bound for airports. Flights took the vaccine to larger hubs, where it could be distributed better throughout the country. And we saw some of those flights land today at UPS headquarters, Worldport, in Louisville, Kentucky. This is just the start of a massive movement. It all begins right here.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Portage, Michigan.

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BRUNHUBER: And Polo Sandoval is in New York where hospitals are preparing for the vaccine to arrive.

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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The hospitals across the United States have been preparing to receive, store and eventually administer shots of this groundbreaking Pfizer vaccine for months here at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. They've been preparing well before the Food and Drugs Administration issued that Emergency Use Authorization over the weekend.

I had an opportunity to speak one of the directors of pharmacy at another New York City hospital, at Lennox Hill, telling me that the plan here is to have security actually receive that shipment of the vaccine at the front door. They will escort it to the facility's pharmacy where it will be stored appropriately. Not long after that is when they expect to begin vaccinating many members of their staff here. Obviously, those who have close contact with patients, and even also

those support staff, those who deliver the food, for example, those who clean hospital rooms will also likely be eligible for this first allotment of the vaccine. That particular facility going to be handling things in a specific way. They're going to stagger the vaccinations over about three weeks or so.

[04:05:00]

Basically the example I got from the hospital officials at that facility is the concern is if they were to vaccinate the entire ER or their entire ICU staff in one day, there's always the possibility -- albeit slim -- that some of them could experience some of those minor side effects. So the concern is if that does happen, they could potentially encounter some staffing issues. And that's certainly something they do not want to see especially with hospitalizations on the rise, not just in New York City but really throughout the country.

But for now, really what we have are hospital facilities now preparing for that first round. Here in New York alone, the governor's office saying that they expect to have about 170,000 doses of this first vaccine possibly by the middle of the week with hopefully many more to come.

Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.

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BRUNHUBER: The head of Operation Warp Speed says the hope is that 100 million Americans can be immunized by the end of March. CNN's Jake Tapper spoke with the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration about that timeline.

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DR. STEPHEN HAHN, COMMISSIONER, U.S. FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION: We're working very hard to help the manufacturers in the supply chain to get as much of supply as possible up and running and of course, assessing the quality of manufacturing. I have heard public reports from the Department of Health and Human Services that the expectation is in the next several months that there will be enough supply of vaccines to vaccinate 100 million Americans.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: HHS Secretary Azar also said however, that the U.S. in his view was on track to have doses ready for 20 million Americans by the end of the year. 20 million, that's just 18 days away. You have 2.9 million going out right now. That doesn't seem possible, does it?

HAHN: Well, I think it's possible. You know, I certainly heard those discussions and I think that's a reasonable prediction, and I have confidence around that.

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BRUNHUBER: Dr. Saju Mathew is a primary care physician and public health specialist and he joins me now from here in Atlanta. Doctor, thank you so much for speaking with us.

So later today, it starts in earnest, shots will be going into arms. So as someone who, you know, regularly sees COVID patients in your office here in Georgia where cases have been skyrocketing, seeing those, you know, cases of the vaccine rolling on to trucks, what's your reaction?

DR. SAJU MATHEW, PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN: Kim, thanks for having me on your show. Listen, I never thought if anybody told me I would be so excited to see trucks with vaccines, loaded, leaving the Pfizer headquarters, months ago I would have been shocked.

But listen, it was such an incredible sense of relief and joy when you talk about so many people that are dying, like you mentioned, we're going to be hitting 300,000 deaths in the U.S., over 3,000 people dying a day, and over 200,000 cases. This pandemic is getting worse, so this is absolutely light at the end of the tunnel. We just need to be patient. We cannot take that masks off. A lot more people unfortunately will die but there is hope.

BRUNHUBER: Now there's a lot of debate around whether White House officials should be among the first to get the vaccine ahead of the general public.

President Trump tweeted, people working in the White House should receive the vaccine somewhat later in the program unless specifically necessary. I've asked that this adjustment be made. I'm not scheduled to take the vaccine but look forward to doing so at the appropriate time.

So is it good if they're among the first in a sense that it sets an example and will give confidence in the vaccine, or is it bad in the sense that, you know, as it can be seen as cue jumping especially by members of this administration who have sought to downplay the severity of this virus in the first place?

MATHEW: Yes listen, you know, ultimately is can, we're not going to have enough vaccines, the first shipment will only get 2.9 million doses. That's just one percent of the U.S. population. But on the other hand, you know, I think that it is important for the White House to set an example and to say listen, here's my arm, give me the vaccine. This is safe, all Americans should get it.

You know, there's also a little bit of a bigger issue there in that if you think about a lot of people in the White House have definitely gotten COVID-19. We have been hearing about that in the news over and over again with the White House official. So the question really as a scientist is, if you had COVID recently, should you really be first in line to get the vaccine because we know there is some protection, at least two to five months.

BRUNHUBER: Well, here is another question for you then. It's a two- dose vaccine. As you said, there's a debate brewing about whether it's better to give one dose to as many as possible, or two doses to a fewer number. Where do you stand?

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MATHEW: The way the studies were conducted was pretty straightforward. It was two shots three weeks apart, and if you look at all the parameters, which is exciting, 95 percent protection, 95 protection, Kim, in patients over 65. That's huge. Because they form, if you will, a bulk of the population with a lot of illnesses and comorbidities.

So in order to get all that protection, you really have to follow the two dose regimen. So I fall amongst a group of doctors and physicians that think that we should follow the protocol that was set for by the vaccine trial, which is two shots.

Now one last thing about that to complete the answer is, after the first dose, you do get 50 percent. You don't get 95 percent, and again, 100 percent of people are protected from getting severe COVID illness if you get both doses. So I think that everybody should follow the two dose schedule.

BRUNHUBER: All right, there are concerns about the federal plan to gather information about the vaccine patients. Everyone wants to, you know, the data to help track the vaccination efforts to make sure people get both doses and so on. But some worry that will discourage people to get the second shot, especially from minority communities and those who would, you know, naturally be suspicious of vaccination. Why do we need this information, and should we worry about how that data will be used?

MATHEW: No, I think we absolutely need that information. If you really think about it, you're three times as likely to be hospitalized, five times as likely to die from COVID if you are in the minority population, specifically the African-American population. So all of that data is going to be key. The good news is if you look at the Pfizer vaccine trial, about nine percent of the population studied was black. And it is going to be important for people like me, people of color physicians to roll up the sleeve and get the vaccines, so we can deal with a lot of the issues in the minority communities regarding vaccine hesitation, and the fear of getting a vaccine that may just be more of an experimental vaccine.

BRUNHUBER: All right, well thank you so much for joining us on this exciting day. We appreciate it. Dr. Saju Mathew. Appreciate your time.

MATHEW: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: Canada is also preparing to roll out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It's giving hope after recent lockdowns have failed to curb the spread of new infections there. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted a photo of the plane carrying the first doses just after it landed on Sunday evening. The vaccines are arriving amid increasing cases. Despite restrictions on movement in major cities, Canada's two largest provinces, Ontario and Quebec logged record setting case numbers over the past week.

After failing for weeks to pass a COVID relief bill for the American people. A group of bipartisan lawmakers have finally made a decision. They plan to split the bill in two. Leaders from both sides of the political aisle have been negotiating on how to get a stimulus passed in both chambers of Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin spoke for 30 minutes Sunday.

The first proposed relief bill will be worth about $748 billion. That includes money for small business loans, jobless benefits and vaccine distribution among other things. The second package would be for roughly $160 billion for state and local aid, one of the biggest sticking points, would include liability protections for businesses and others. Now it's uncertain how many Senators and House members would sign on to the second proposal. But the first bill is expected to get wide bipartisan support.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are about to be one step closer to making history. A milestone moment is coming up today as the Electoral College gets set to cast their votes for the next president and vice president. We'll have the details next. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Today marks a major step in finalizing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next leaders of the United States. In just a few hours, electors from each state will formally vote for president and vice president in the Electoral College. Biden is expected to speak later in the day. CNN's Boris Sanchez walks us through what happens next.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The electors of the Electoral College will gather in their respective states to cast their ballots and certify President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

Now, here is how it's going to work. This is going to be happening all throughout the day. These electors that have been selected since earlier in the summer and the spring, they're going to gather and recorded their votes in writing on actual paper ballots, individually for president and vice president.

Once they cast their ballots and count them, they're going to sign six copies of a certificate of the vote. Those copies are the actual official documents that certify their vote. And they're going to wind up going to their respective secretaries of state, to the U.S. Senate, to the National Archives, et cetera.

But the most consequential certificates are going to be the ones that go to Capitol Hill because that's where they will be counted on January 6th. Notably, an event that Vice President Pence will be presiding over, and there is a chance, in that process, for some drama, for Republican lawmakers, who are supportive of the president, President Trump, to raise an objection.

Ultimately though, to sustain that objection, for it to be consequential, they would need both chambers of Congress to sustain that objection to agree to it and because Democrats control the House of Representatives, that appears extremely unlikely but there are still may be some moments rife with drama.

Ultimately, the big thing to watch for tomorrow as the Electoral College certifies the results of the election, certifies that Joe Biden won the election, how many Republican lawmakers, how many Republican senators will finally come out and acknowledge the reality that Joe Biden won the election, that there was no widespread electoral fraud. That, of course, is something President Trump is not ready to do.

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BRUNHUBER: Maria Cardona is a CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist, and she joins me from Washington. Thanks for being here with us.

So later today, the Electoral College meets. But Sunday President Trump says -- said his legal team will keep pursuing challenges and you know, very few Republicans bar some who have, you know, lost their seats or aren't running for reelection are acknowledging that Joe Biden won in a fair election.

Trying to maintain the fiction that the Biden's presidency isn't legitimate, is that just that some people are arguing, the new birtherism. And is there anything that Biden can say in his speech tonight to change that?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sadly, I don't think that there is anything that Biden can say in his speech tonight to change it, at least to change it immediately. Because what's going on, and let's just say that this is and should be completely unacceptable for any elected official to turn their back, and to turn away, not just from reality, not just from the truth, not just from the facts, but to do something that is in essence doing harm to our democracy to our democratic institutions and to our electoral process.

These Republicans understand that what they are saying makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I don't know if Donald Trump knows that, and that he is just playing everybody, because you know he has raised millions and millions of dollars off of this from his own supporters. That I just think he is just cleaning out and taking to the bank to completely taking advantage of them.

But to me, it is a pathetic read of where the Republican Party stands today, that they are not able to stand up to this bully after four years, that Donald Trump still has such an incredible chokehold, that he continues to keep the Republicans hostage in an attempt to continue to control them.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Well I want to turn to the transition now. Biden has a very different problem then President Trump had, having to bring together so many desperate coalitions, each claiming a share of his cabinet. What do you make of it so far? Who are the winners and losers? CARDONA: So, what he is doing with his cabinet is a true reflection not just of his coalition that helped him win the White House, but of what this country truly reflects as a robust mix of so many incredibly diverse backgrounds. And that is what he is representing in the cabinet.

The other really important thing that he is doing in the cabinet is that he is bringing in people that actually know how government works, that actually respect and are committed to public service, and that want to do this for the betterment of the American people.

BRUNHUBER: While I have you here, I wanted to take advantage of your expertise on this topic. Much has been made in the post-election analysis of the presidents relatively strong showing among Latinos, even beyond the Cuban-American community in Florida, but elsewhere across the country.

Now, you know, to be clear, Biden still won the overwhelming majority of the Latino vote.

CARDONA: Right.

BRUNHUBER: But looking forward, I mean is this a one-off? Is this tied to Trump? Or is it a new strength that you think Republicans can mobilize in the coming years?

CARDONA: Look, as a Latina, and I have been working on the Latino vote and mobilization of the Latina -- of the Latino vote for three decades now here in the United States. And I have always contended with and advised the Democratic Party that Latina should not be considered a base vote. They should be considered a swing vote because they have swung for many presidential candidates.

Having said that, it is true that a Republican president has never won the Latino vote. There have been presidents that have gone more or less percentages of the Latino vote depending on who they are. George Bush in 2004 got 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. And that's what helped him get to the White House.

Donald Trump did a little bit better this time around and he did in 2016. To say that he did overwhelmingly well with the Latino vote is a complete over exaggeration, because there is no question, if you look at the exit polls, that the reason -- one of the reasons why Joe Biden is in the White House today is because of the overwhelming support that he got with Latinos in Arizona. He would not have won Arizona if not for the Latino vote. In Nevada, he would not have won Nevada if not for Latino vote. In Colorado, he would not have won Colorado if not for the Latino vote. And in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, he got a huge margin of the Hispanic vote, which is incredibly important.

BRUNHUBER: Maria Cardona, thank you very much for joining us.

[04:25:00]

CARDONA: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. BRUNHUBER: And don't miss our special coverage of the Electoral College vote starting at 11:00 a.m. Monday in New York. 4:00 p.m. in London right here on CNN.

Now to a stunning security breach in the U.S. government. The Commerce Department confirms to CNN that it's been hacked, the victim of a data breach that's believed to be linked to Russia. "The Washington Post" reports Russia government hackers also targeted the Treasury Department. Now U.S. authorities are racing to investigate. CNN's Alex Marquardt has the details.

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ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. government has been hit with a cyberattack which looks like the latest in Russia's hacking campaign against the United States. The U.S. Commerce Department confirmed to CNN that one of its bureaus saw a data breach.

"The Washington Post" is reporting that the Treasury Department was also targeted. It's unclear what data was accessed. Commerce said that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security Cyber arm, which is known as CISA have been asked to assist. CISA said that there was recently discovered activity on government networks, as they put, and that they are offering technical assistance.

Now, the former head of CISA, Chris Krebs who was fired by President Donald Trump after the election call today's news in a tweet, a pretty large-scale attack. And he said that it is still early.

"The Washington Post" reported that the Russian hacking group APT29, which is also known as Cozy Bear, is behind today's reported attacks as well as a recent stunning attack on cybersecurity firm FireEye in which they stole hacking tools.

Well beyond the U.S. elections, Russia is known to be carrying out significant broad online attacks against United States and others, both government and private targets.

Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.

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BRUNHUBER: Germany is getting ready to enforce tough new coronavirus restrictions. Coming up, we'll find out how it's cracking down just ahead of the holidays to stem an uptick in new infections. Stay with us.

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