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CNN Exclusive: Navalny, Novichok and Moscow; Electoral College Cements Biden Victory; U.S. Tops 300,000 Deaths on Vaccine Rollout Day; Joe Biden's Win Cemented by Electoral College; U.S. Attorney General William Barr Resigns; Trump Won't Concede Despite Electoral College Vote; Group Preserving Redwoods by Cloning Them; U.S. Death Toll Tops 300,000 as Vaccinations Begin. Aired 12-12:45a ET
Aired December 15, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, a CNN investigation encounters evidence linking Russia's security service, the FSB, to the assassination attempt of outspoken Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny.
Basta! On the same day his election win is confirmed by the Electoral College, Joe Biden delivers his harshest humiles (ph) yet, telling Donald Trump and his allies to stop the assault on democracy.
And in the U.S., let the vaccinations begin. A scientific miracle against the backdrop of a soaring coronavirus death toll.
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VAUSE: We begin with an exclusive report about the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The investigative group Bellingcat and CNN have uncovered evidence that Russia security service formed an elite team specializing in nerve agents and this team followed Navalny for years.
The man known as Putin's loudest critic came close to death when he was poisoned with a lethal toxin back in August. CNN's chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward and her team have been working the story for months. And Clarissa spoke with Navalny as he recovers in a German military hospital. Here's her exclusive report.
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CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): August 20th, on a flight to Moscow, a passenger captures the awful wails of Alexei Navalny.
WARD (voice-over): The Russian opposition leader has suddenly fallen ill and he knows exactly why. ALEXEI NAVALNY, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER: I get out of the bathroom, turned over to the flight attendant and said to them, I was poisoned, I'm going to die and then -- then I laid down under his feet to die.
(LAUGHTER)
WARD: You knew in that moment that you've been poisoned?
NAVALNY: Yes.
WARD (voice-over): Quick thinking from the pilot saves his life. Instead of flying on to Moscow still three hours away, the plane diverts to Omsk. Two days later, Navalny is flown to Berlin, where the German government announces he has been poisoned with a nerve agent Novichok.
Now an exclusive investigation can reveal a top secret mission, tracking Navalny, involving experts in chemical weapons, who work for the FSB, the Russian successor to the Soviet KGB.
This nondescript building on the outskirts of Moscow was the headquarters of the operation. We are staying in the car because we don't want to attract any attention.
WARD: But this compound is part of the Institute of Criminalistics of the FSB, Russia's security service. And that fence, an elite team of operatives has been tracking Navalny's every move for more than three years.
WARD (voice-over): CNN has examined hundreds of pages of phone records and flight manifests that reveal the backgrounds, communications and travel of the group. The documents were obtained by online investigative outlet Bellingcat, which two years ago identified the Russian military intelligence agents allegedly sent to England to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
WARD (voice-over): The FSB toxins team was activated in 2017 just days after Navalny announced he would run for president in the election the next year. The team's leader is Stanislav Makshakov, an expert in chemical weapons. Several of the team are doctors but they weren't recruited to save lives.
WARD: I just wanted to show you some photographs here and ask you if you -- if you recognize -- if you've ever seen any of the men in those photographs.
NAVALNY: No.
WARD: You don't recognize.
NAVALNY: I don't recognize any of them.
WARD: Would it surprise you to learn that some of these men went on more than 30 trips with you over the course of three years? NAVALNY: This is absolutely terrifying. I don't know if terrifying is a good word.
WARD: I think it's a pretty good word.
NAVALNY: Yes, but the -- well, I understand how system works in Russia. I understand that Putin hates me. And I understand that these people who are sitting in the Kremlin, they are ready to kill.
WARD: Is it your contention that Vladimir Putin must have been aware of this?
NAVALNY: Of course, 100 percent. It could have not been happened without direct order of Putin because it's a -- it was big scale.
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WARD (voice-over): In the weeks before he was poisoned, Navalny and his wife Yulia took a short vacation to a resort in Kaliningrad. Our investigation has uncovered that the FSB team followed.
According to Bellingcat, the security cameras inside the hotel were mysteriously turned off while they were there. Navalny says Yulia felt uncomfortable. She took videos and photos of men she believed were following them.
YULIA NAVALYANA, WIFE OF ALEXEI NAVALNY: (Speaking foreign language).
WARD (voice-over): "This man, I also don't recognize," she says.
Hours after the FSB's toxins team left Kaliningrad, Yulia suddenly felt sick.
NAVALNY: She said, "Well, I feel really, really bad."
Do you need an ambulance?
No.
Is it heart?
No.
Is it stomach?
No.
Is it the head?
No.
Could you describe it?
No.
And then we approached a restaurant and she said, "Well, I feel like worst in my life, I've never felt it before," but unfortunately --, of course, I couldn't connect these dots. Now I realize how bad she was feeling.
WARD (voice-over): Yulia recovered but the FSB unit was apparently not done with the Navalnys.
WARD: In the days after Kaliningrad, cellphone data shows that several senior FSB officials were in regular contact with a lab in this compound. It's called the signal institute. And CNN and Bellingcat have established that it has been involved with researching and developing Novichok.
WARD (voice-over): In mid-August, Navalny and his team travelled to Siberia. At least five members of the FSB unit make the same journey on different flights. In Tomsk, Navalny and his colleagues stay at the Xander Hotel.
We travelled to the Siberian city to retrace his steps on the night he was poisoned.
WARD: So this is the room that Alexei Navalny was staying in and it looks like my room here is right next door.
WARD (voice-over): According to Navalny, he went to bed at around midnight after drinking a cocktail with his team. The FSB's toxins unit was not far away.
WARD: Using a ping from a cellphone, we have been able to place on of the FSB operatives in this area, just blocks from the Xander Hotel on the night of August 19th, the night that the nerve agent Novichok made its way into room 239.
WARD (voice-over): Navalny left the hotel early the next morning. He boarded the Moscow flight feeling fine. Three hours later, he was close to death.
Back in Tomsk, Navalny's team frantically collect any evidence they can from his hotel room, including water and shampoo bottles, a toothbrush and a towel.
As they did, there was a surge in communication among the FSB unit and their bosses. If it was expected that Navalny would die on the flight, they were now scrambling to deal with a very different situation.
After much back and forth, Russian authorities allowed Navalny to be transported to Berlin. What they don't know is that the items recovered from his Tomsk hotel room were also on board. Some later tested positive for Novichok.
Back in Moscow, we went in search of the FSB's toxins team.
WARD: So we're here now at the home of one of the FSB team and we are going to go see if he has anything to say to us.
WARD (voice-over): We enter a rundown apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow, where operative Oleg Tayakin lives. WARD: (Speaking foreign language).
My name is Clarissa Ward. I work for CNN.
Can I ask you a couple of questions?
(Speaking foreign language).
Was it your team that poisoned Navalny, please?
Do you have any comment?
He doesn't seem to want to talk to us.
WARD (voice-over): Toxicologists tell CNN that Navalny is incredibly lucky to be alive and that the intention was undoubtedly to kill him.
WARD: So you said that you want to go back to Russia.
NAVALNY: And I will do.
WARD: You are aware of the risk of going back.
NAVALNY: Yes, but I'm Russian politician. And even when I was not just in the hospital, I was in intensive therapy. I said publicly, I will go back and I will go back because I'm a Russian politician, I belong to this country and definitely, especially now when these actual crimes are cracked open and revealed.
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NAVALNY: I understand the whole operation. I would never give Putin such a gift.
WARD: CNN has not established that the FSB toxins team were in fact the individuals who actually poisoned Navalny. We have, of course, reached out for comment from the Kremlin, also the FSB who told us we might be able to expect the response in nine days.
We also reached out to members of the team as you saw in our report. But so far, we have not heard anything back and it should come as no surprise that Russian officials have not yet opened any criminal investigation into the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.
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VAUSE: Clarissa, thank you, reporting there from Moscow.
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VAUSE: Under U.S. election law, the electors of the Electoral College shall meet and vote on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December of presidential election years. If you get, it was this past Monday. In years, past it's been mostly procedural or a symbolic day but not this election. When California's 55 electors voted for Joe Biden, it became official.
He had won the presidency. This should have been the final rebuke to Donald Trump and his allies in their efforts to overturn the overwhelming outcome of the 2020 presidential. Election
In a nationally televised address, Biden later condemned Trump's abuse of power and his assault on democracy.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed. We, the people, voted. Faith in our institutions held. The integrity of our elections remains intact. Now it is time to turn the page, as we have done throughout our history, to unite, to heal.
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VAUSE: Ron Brownstein is a CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for "The Atlantic." He joins us from Los Angeles.
Ron, thanks for taking the time to be with us. Appreciate it.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi, John.
BIDEN: Well, for months, Biden has downplayed the lawsuits and the lies of Trump and his allies. But on Monday he put it very bluntly. He accused him of launching this assault on democracy, he said it had to end. Here he is.
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BIDEN: Time and again, President Trump's lawyers presented to state officials, state legislators, state and federal courts and ultimately to the United States Supreme Court twice. They were heard by more than 80 judges across this country and in every case, no cause or evidence was found to reverse or question or dispute the results.
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VAUSE: Yes. I think it's an important point. Not only have Republican judges rules against the Trump Campaign but Trump appointed judges have as well.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Essentially the quote, "evidence," unquote, has been laughed out of courts really from coast to coast from Republican appointees, from Democratic appointees in the hearings that Rudolph Giuliani helped engineer in states around the country with sympathetic Republican audiences. It was laughable, the claims.
And yet, it is striking that despite this unbroken record, of courts finding no there there, three-quarters of Republican voters believe, according to polls, the election was stolen from Donald Trump. And his success at convincing so many Republican voters and by magnetic poll drawing in so many Republican elected officials into this starkly undemocratic effort to subvert the election results really is kind of an ominous warning for what may be ahead, not only for the Biden presidency but for America in the decades to come.
VAUSE: Well, part of that sort of farce, if you like, the Trump team organized his own Electoral College event on Monday.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
VAUSE: Listen to White House adviser and architect of the kids in cages policy, Stephen Miller, to explain why.
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STEPHEN MILLER, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: The only date in the constitution is January 20th. So we have more than enough time to right the wrong of this fraudulent election result and certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election.
As we speak, today an ultimate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we're going to send those results up to Congress.
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VAUSE: Given this administration came in with alternative facts, it could be fitting that it ends with ultimate electors.
But apart from some kind of pity party for Trump, what's the point?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, not begins and ends with alternate facts; begins and ends with a racist conspiracy theory.
Donald Trump's political career began with the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not eligible to be president, the birtherism argument. It ends with a racist conspiracy theory that this election was stolen from him in cities with large African American populations.
If you look at his tweets, his comments, the legal filings by Texas and the Republican states, they focus on Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta.
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BROWNSTEIN: Even though, as we discussed before, Trump declined more, relative from 16 to 20, in the mostly white suburban counties outside of those major cities.
But you don't hear them arguing that there was fraud in Montgomery and Delaware Counties, outside Philadelphia; or Oakland, outside of Detroit; or Cobb and Gwinnett, outside of Atlanta; or even the wild (ph) counties outside of Milwaukee. This points to kind of the real argument here, that, in essence, the Democratic coalition, those voters, are stealing the election in the same way they are stealing your America.
And that is, I think, the stab in the back argument that Trump wants to nurture for the next four years.
VAUSE: Biden won the Electoral College, 306 to 232, although as Donald Trump describes that margin --
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TRUMP: Electoral College, as you know, congressman, we had a landslide.
They lost an election and they lost it big. It was really a landslide from the Electoral College standpoint.
We had a massive landslide victory as you know, in the Electoral College.
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VAUSE: A landslide. And only now, as some Republican lawmakers recognizing Biden as president-elect, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee actually had this message for Trump. Here he is.
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SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-TN): I hope that he puts the country first -- I mean the president -- that he takes pride in his considerable accomplishments and congratulates the president-elect and helps him get off to a good start, especially in the middle of this pandemic.
We need to not lose one day in the transition in getting the vaccine out to everybody who needs it.
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VAUSE: Unfortunately, Trump is not going to do that, it seems, especially while he's raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from donors.
BROWNSTEIN: Well, the fact that we're still reporting on the Republicans who are acknowledging Biden's victory as opposed to those who are not is an indication of just how far this has gone.
I don't think people are surprised that Donald Trump contested and refused to accept the results of the election even though he lost by 7 million in the popular vote, I think the surprise has been just how many Republicans have gone along for this ride with him.
Two-thirds, roughly, of the House Republicans, two-thirds of the Republican attorneys general signing on to this lawsuit that the Supreme Court dismissed in the state of Texas, to invalidate 20 million voters in four states. And the fact that so many Republicans went along with this really shows you the kind of the clang between the two elements of Joe Biden's speech night.
On the one hand, calling out the Republican willingness to engage in this kind of broad scale attack on the tenets of American democracy; on the other saying OK, now we can turn the page, we can work together. It's not clear to me that a party that was willing to do the first is really open to doing the second.
But that's we're going to find, out in the first months of the Biden Administration.
VAUSE: Yes. Ron, thank you. Interesting days, as we always say, still to come. Ron Brownstein in L.A., thanks.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.
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VAUSE: Well, the biggest and most complicated national vaccination rollout is underway in the U.S., bringing hopes to millions. But too late for hundreds of thousands who have and will lose their lives to COVID.
Also ahead, just in time for Christmas, the attorney general, who defended the president and not the presidency, calls it a day. Yet another senior Trump official, who it seems ultimately failed the loyalty test.
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VAUSE: The first vaccinations for the coronavirus underway, now in the U.S. Health care workers are the first to be immunized with the Pfizer vaccine, which was developed in record time.
Despite that it comes too late for more than 300,000 dead in the United States. Experts predict thousands more will have died during the northern winter. Here is CNN's Martin Savidge.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three, two, one. Vaccinate.
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MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All across the country, doctors and nurses are rolling up their sleeves ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Doing great. SAVIDGE (voice-over): -- to get the first dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.
STELLA OGAKE, PULMONARY AND CRITICAL CARE PHYSICIAN: I feel great. I just got the vaccine. It was not painful at the. I don't know how I'm going to feel in the next few hours but I feel really good.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): As part of the highest risk group, health care workers like these at Ohio State University Medical Center, are giving the first injections to their colleagues.
STEVEN LOBOREC, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF PHARMACY, OHIO SATE UNIVERSITY: I spent a large portion of my day in here yesterday by myself practicing what I needed to do before the vaccine arrived.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): So far, the rollout has largely been a success.
ALEX AZAR, U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: This week, everyone's work starts to pay off. This weekend's shipment of vaccines is 2.9 million doses. Each Friday from here on out, we will announce new weekly allocations of vaccine.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): The logistics require to gets to this point are impressive. This weekend, shipments of the Pfizer vaccine were loaded on to trucks and planes from Michigan to all 50 states in Puerto Rico. One hundred and forty-five sites should get their deliveries by the end of the day. More than 400 will receive shipments tomorrow.
Doctors have just three minutes from once the packages are open, check the expiration dates to unpack and get the vials back into the freezer. It's a monumental moment for state leaders.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: There's some justice in the fact that we were the epicenter. We are the first wave dealt with the brunt of this crisis. And now, we are going to be in the first wave of fighting back.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): But New York, like other states, will need to prioritize their recipients until more companies get their vaccines into production. The Moderna vaccine is expected to get emergency use authorization from the FDA later this week.
GUSTAVE PERNA, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: We know that we are going to ship just a little bit short of six million doses out to the American people. We're shipping it to 3,285 locations across the country.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): It's good news but health experts warn it's not an overnight fix.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I don't believe we're going to be able to throw the masks away and forget about physical separation and congregate settings for a while, probably likely until we get into the late fall and early next winter.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): And the numbers are evidence as more than 300,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus.
RITZ JACKSON, EMT PARAMEDIC: I am hopeful that majority of people are going to feel comfortable enough to come out and get the vaccine. This has been a very long year.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): Martin Savidge, CNN, Columbus, Ohio.
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VAUSE: Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips is the chief clinical officer at Providence Health System and a CNN medical analyst. She is with us from the West Coast.
Thank you for taking the time, it's been a. While
DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thanks so much for having me.
VAUSE: The next very real problem it seems, now is vaccine hesitancy. So here's a question for the CEO of Pfizer.
Has he been vaccinated?
Here's the answer.
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ALBERT BOURLA, PFIZER CEO: No, I haven't taken it yet. We are having an ethical committee dealing with the question of who is getting it, given that there are very strict allocation rules, like the CDC has voted. We're very sensitive not to cut the queue and have people getting vaccinated before.
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VAUSE: I get it there are rules there are guidelines and protocols.
But wouldn't be a really good idea for the person running the company, making the vaccine, to actually be the guy first in line to get it?
COMPTON-PHILLIPS: You know, I don't know if it would be or not. Because, exactly as he said, what's the guidelines say is start with health care workers that are at the highest risk first. The ones who are actually actively taking care of patients with COVID or cleaning up after. Them the ones that are really in the thick of it.
So if you have people like the CEO of the company jumping in line ahead of them, then he gets faulted for saying he's taking advantage of privilege. So I can see his position but really send every single vaccine, even the one that would be used for him, out to the front lines and make sure they get used on the right people first.
VAUSE: OK, fair point.
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VAUSE: There's also this question of supply, when the vaccine will be available for widespread use. Here's the Health and Human Services Secretary.
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ALEX AZAR, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: If we get the Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca vaccine approved in January, when their data comes in, we'll have significant additional supplies.
And again, late February in the March time period, I think you'll start seeing much more like a flu vaccination campaign, people going into their Kroger, their CVS, their Walgreens --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The general population.
AZAR: Yes, yes.
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VAUSE: Yes, yes, but maybe not. Early results show that AstraZeneca's efficacy is good but not great, between 62 percent and 70 percent. A week after the makers of Russia's Sputnik vaccine tweeted the two companies should work together on research, AstraZeneca announced just that.
Then when the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has been in trials for most of October, and it says the interim results will be out sometime in January, assuming they're successful, authorization could take months after that.
Making vaccines is not easy and the swift success of the first two doesn't guarantee the rest will be as easy or quick, will it?
COMPTON-PHILLIPS: No, that's exactly right. That's why every single vaccine goes through the kind of rigorous testing that you're seeing right now. So if all the stars align, every single one of these vaccines works perfectly, fantastic, will have a huge supply by next spring.
If any of them get hung up or if any, like the AstraZeneca ones, has questions about the data, it's going to take longer to get them in circulation.
At the moment, we're thrilled, we are at the beginning of the end. But it's definitely not a clear path between now and having everybody in the general public being able to have the vaccine by next March.
VAUSE: With that, here is a reality check from Dr. Anthony Fauci about where the U.S. is right now in terms of ending the pandemic, here he is. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We do still have a lot of work to do, despite the scientific advances of a vaccine, despite the fact that we are capable, from public health measures, to do a lot. We still have a long way to go to get everybody on board, to pull together.
The only way you're going to get this pandemic under control is if we all pull together as a country and not in different directions, as a divided nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: In many ways, does it seem that the biggest challenges facing the United States is a lack of cooperation?
A lack of empathy?
A lack of consideration?
COMPTON-PHILLIPS: I think all of that stems from the fact that we simply don't agree on the same facts anymore. If we disagree that the coronavirus, that has now killed over 300,000 Americans, is actually a pandemic, is actually much worse than the flu, is actually circulating in our community and can be prevented by a mask and that we can get our lives back if we simply do some common sense measures, like stay socially distanced and wear a mask while we're inside, if we can't agree on that it's a lot harder to work together and make sure that we, as an entire nation, come to the end of this pandemic.
I do hope we can reset and actually agree on that same common set of facts.
VAUSE: Then there's, also just to circle back, again, with vaccine hesitation, there are these opinion polls, which show that a good number of Americans will not take this vaccine or at least are going to wait a while to see how it works out.
If that pans out that way, what will be the end result?
COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Well, we know that the faster we get to broad immunization, that's like around two-thirds of Americans getting the vaccine, the faster we will get to herd immunity and the faster we will put this pandemic to bed.
So we do hope that we can have a large number of people that are confident and looking at the data and looking around, seeing the very safe and minimal side effects that come with this vaccine, really temporary, making you feel a little cruddy because you get the immune system working for a day or so, that is a minimal side effect and the benefit is so worth it. We get our lives back.
VAUSE: Hallelujah. Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, thank. You
COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Thank you. (END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, Donald Trump has announced on Twitter, farewell to one of his most loyal members of cabinet. It seems even Bill Barr wasn't loyal. Enough
His crime?
Possibly a refusal to shred the Constitution.
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JOHN VASE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour. CNN and investigative group Bellingcat have uncovered evidence of a Russian government operation which tracked opposition leader Alexey Navalny for years. Navalny was poisoned in August, he says on orders from Vladimir Putin.
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The Kremlin has yet to comment on CNN's reporting.
U.S. healthcare workers are the first to get the coronavirus vaccine. It happened on Monday as the country surpassed 300,000 deaths. The Pfizer vaccine is being distributed to all 50 states at a time when new COVID-19 infections and deaths are increasing at unprecedented rates.
And electors for all U.S. 50 states and the District of Columbia voted Monday to affirm Joe Biden's presidential win. In a speech following that vote, President-elect Biden praised the strength of American democracy. He condemned the unprecedented attempt by President Trump and his allies to overturn the will of the people.
Well, maybe the timing was just coincidence, but moments after Joe Biden crossed the Electoral College threshold, Donald Trump tweeted the resignation of Attorney General William Barr. He's been on thin ice ever since he admitted there was no evidence of widespread election fraud.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins has more now on Biden's win and Barr's resignation.
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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This is a process that President Trump has tried to subvert ever since he lost this election to Joe Biden, but you saw yesterday as the Electoral College did affirm Biden's win, he gave a short speech afterward, talking about it and talking about what has gone on with the president and his Republican allies' desperate effort to try to overturn the results of this election by taking matters like what you saw last week, with the Supreme Court in that swift rejection of the lawsuit that the attorney general of Texas was trying to bring. But despite the fact that we've seen this Electoral College affirm
Biden's win, we are still told by sources that the president does not expect to concede this election, at least certainly not anytime soon. And he has said publicly, as well, that he plans to continue to fight it and claims that there are more legal steps this team can take, even though if you speak to people close to the president's campaign and close to the legal team, they just believe they're running out of options after that Supreme Court rejection. And they're not sure where they're going to go next.
One tactic the president may try to pursue over the next few weeks, as we wait for the end of his presidency and for Joe Biden to be inaugurated, is a distraction technique.
And that was in part we saw yesterday, as the last states were certifying their votes. That's when the president chose to announce on Twitter that the attorney general, Bill Barr, is resigning in the next few days.
His last day at the White House will be December 23 he said in a resignation letter that he gave to the president. And if you looked at the tweet from the president announcing this and looked at Bill Barr's letter, you would think this is an amicable departure, but to these two individuals, it is certainly anything but that.
And sources who we spoke to in recent weeks said the relationship between the president and once one of his most favorite cabinet members had deteriorated so greatly after Bill Barr undercut the president's claims about voter fraud. And then even more so over the weekend after it was revealed that Barr did work to follow DOJ protocol by stopping that Biden investigation from becoming public, something the president criticized him over and said he should have done the opposite.
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But that is not what the president mentioned in his tweet, announcing that Bill Barr will be stepping down; and his deputy, Jeffrey Rosen, will be taking over as the attorney general just for a few more weeks.
Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
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VAUSE: Negotiators for the European Union and the United Kingdom remain far apart on several key issues about the terms of their future relationship.
Some of the sticking points include fishing rights, the U.K.'s ability to break from E.U. standards, and the legal oversight of any deal. This stalemate could mean the U.K. will not have a solid trade framework in place when the Brexit transition period ends at the end of the month.
The Netherlands is implementing its strictest lockdown of the pandemic for at least five weeks because of a dramatic rise in cases. Schools and universities will close, for the most past, along with non- essential shops and all public gathering places.
The Dutch prime minister announced the measures in a rare address from his office in the Hague.
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MARK RUTTE, NETHERLANDS PRIME MINISTER: The Netherlands is closing down. This means that we will close all places where people gather in groups, with a few exceptions that are necessary to keep society running or to protect vulnerable people.
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VAUSE: The prime minister says at-home gatherings should be limited to two guests at a time. There is an exception for three days around Christmas when there can be three people.
The Czech Republic also going back to stricter lockdown measures, just two weeks after restaurants, hotels and indoor sports venues reopened. Coronavirus cases have been surging since September to the point where hospitals had to drop all non-urgent care. There will also be a curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. and an early start to Christmas school holidays. In the U.K., London and some of its surrounding areas are returning to a strict lockdown on Wednesday as the number of confirmed cases soars.
U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed the move as he announced a new variant of the virus, which may be linked with the fastest spread of cases in Southeast England.
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MATT HANCOCK, U.K. HEALTH SECRETARY: Initial analysis suggests that this variant is growing faster than the existing variants. Mister speaker, I must stress at this point that there is currently nothing to suggest that this variant is more likely to cause serious disease. And the latest clinical advice is that it's highly unlikely that this mutation would fail to respond to a vaccine.
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VAUSE: And he added that similar variants of the coronavirus have been identified in other countries recently. And U.K. authorities have notified the WHO about the mutation which they discovered.
Well, some of the tallest trees in the world are disappearing. Just ahead, we'll meet a man who's trying to save the giant redwoods by cloning them.
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DAVID MILARCH, FOUNDER, ARCHANGEL ANCIENT TREE ARCHIVE: Every time I walk into an old-growth forest is like the same feeling as if when I walk into a cathedral. And there's an automatic reverence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Milarch is on a mission to show the world the wonder of trees. His nonprofit, Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, searches out the world's most iconic trees and clones them using their DNA.
MILARCH: Everywhere we go, people love their trees, especially the trees the grow in their area. But there's only one tree that seems to be magical and universal in that magic in their appeal and their draw. Everybody wants to know about the redwoods.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The redwoods are the tallest trees on earth. They can grow to more than 115 meters tall and live for more than two millennia. These giants are found only on a thin 700-kilometer band along the coast of Northern California and Southern Oregon, which Milarch says is part of the problem.
MILARCH: There's only about 5 percent of the old-growth redwoods left, and nobody -- nobody cloned any those great trees before they cut them down. We came around about 10 years ago and said, Hey, listen, there's not much of this stuff left. Why don't we try and clone the world's biggest and oldest redwoods?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The work to propagate the new trees takes place far away in a tiny village more than 4,000 kilometers from where the samples were taken.
This old converted warehouse in Copemish, Michigan, has become a home to thousands of redwoods, thanks to a process known as tissue culture. Tissue culture is a micro-propagation technique that involves exposing plant tissue to a specific regimen of nutrients, hormones and light under sterile conditions. Scientists are able to quickly produce thousands of new plants, each an exact copy of the original.
MILARCH: I know it will be hard for you to imagine, but I'm holding a 1,000-year-old coast redwood.
We're cloning trees, preserving their genetics, and we're sending these out, shipping these out, and we're starting to rebuild the first old-growth forest in the world.
We know that redwoods thrive in Chile. We know they thrive in New Zealand. We know that they thrive in British Columbia. You don't have to have any money to do it. You don't have to have a college degree to do it. You just have to have a willingness to take a more intelligent view of what trees do for us, can do for us, and take action.
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VAUSE: And if you'd like to find out more about the innovators who are taking on some of the world's most pressing environmental challenges, tune in for "Going Green" this Saturday, 6 a.m. in New York, 11 a.m. in London. You'll see it only here on CNN.
Well, just 10 days before Christmas, Santa's deputies around the world held a virtual summit to strategize about ways to celebrate the Christmas season during a global pandemic. They agreed one of the biggest gifts this year is the Internet, which allowed them to continue talking to children about the gifts they're hoping to see under the tree.
It wasn't all work, though, for the Santa's helpers. They also sang a few Christmas carols and talked about holiday traditions in their home countries.
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. Can you believe it? Ten days until Christmas. I'm John Vause. I'll be back at the top of the hour. In the meantime, WORLD SPORT is next.
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