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Nearly 200,000 New Cases Tuesday; Hospitalizations Hit Record High; Trump Fires Back After McConnell Congratulates Biden; Biden Taps Pete Buttigieg For Transportation Secretary; President-Elect Biden Stumps For Ossoff And Warnock In Georgia; Control Of The Senate Hinges On Two Runoff Races In Georgia. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 16, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And, you know, as experts and doctors on our air have been saying all week long, the key to this vaccine distribution being successful is that a lot of people, the majority of people across the country actually getting the vaccine.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Very interesting indeed. MJ Lee, thank you so much for all of that reporting.

And up next, vaccine hope comes as the country sees a disturbing rise in cases and record breaking hospitalizations. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Vaccines are arriving but until roughly 70 percent of the population is vaccinated, other protections like wearing a mask is critical to stop the spread and right now the situation is dire. The U.S. is on track to add 1 million new cases in less than a week. The country added nearly 200,000 cases yesterday alone. Here's Dr. Anthony Fauci.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:35:06]

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We should celebrate the fact that the science has come through, but it is not over yet. We have a ways to go. We have to abide by --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

FAUCI: -- the public health measures that we talk about all the time. This is not going to just turn around overnight. We have a ways to go and public health measures is the bridge to get to the vaccine --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right.

FAUCI: -- which is going to get us out of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I want to bring in Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of President- elect Joe Biden's Coronavirus Task Force. Thank you so much for joining me. I want to start where the President-elect left off in his event just a few minutes ago saying that he is planning to take his vaccine publicly. Take us inside the plans to make that happen?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPECIALIST AND EPIDEMIOLOGIST: Well, look, you know, as Dr. Fauci has noted, he strongly advises that the President-elect and the Vice President-elect as well as the current President and Vice President really should be vaccinated as soon as possible for national security reasons as well as for the fact that they are all older, perhaps with the exception of Vice President- elect Harris, and so are at higher risk for severe disease if they are infected.

At the same time, the President-elect and Vice President-elect do not want to be seen as jumping the line, and using their special position as elected officials to get ahead of other Americans who might also be very high priority.

And I get that, you know, at my own hospital, they're starting with people over the age of 60, working in the ICU and emergency room. You know, I'm an infectious disease doctor in my mid-40s, and so while I'm high priority, I'm not at the top of the list. And so, you know, we just have to be patient and wait our turn.

BASH: Right. You're talking about yourself, but just back to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, how do you square that circle, not wanting to be seen as jumping the line to use your words and Joe Biden's words but also to be an example, never mind national security, but just to be an example, that this is a safe vaccine to take?

GOUNDER: You know, I think it's analogous, I think we all want to demonstrate that this is a safe vaccine. Many of us are anxious to get the vaccine, as I'm sure the President-elect and vice President-elect are, I know they are. But at the same time, do not want to be seen as leveraging their position to get to the front of the line.

BASH: So do you -- real quick, do you think it could happen like this week? How quickly are we talking?

GOUNDER: You know, I can't give you an exact timeline, Dana, but I think you will see an announcement before too long here.

BASH: OK. I want to talk big picture with you about the post- Thanksgiving surge in COVID numbers. Christmas, of course, is just around the corner. And, you know, the bottom line is that it is terrible what's going on with more Americans than ever in the hospital. Are you and other members of the Biden transition working on this issue, getting the information you need so that on day one of the Biden administration, these trends can be addressed in an informed way? GOUNDER: Yes, we are. We're working closely with the current administration, through our agency review teams, the transition team more broadly, as well as the advisory board. At the same time, it's really important to understand that some of these trends are underway. And just as they took a long time to get put in the works over months, these are not trends that are going to be reversed overnight.

You know, I think all I can say right now given that we're -- or the administration is not yet in office, is that Americans themselves can take steps over the coming weeks to mask up, to socially distance, if they're going to be around other people to do that outdoors. And really, you know, this is not the time to be traveling as much as we would all love to travel and visit family. Unfortunately, we are really in the worst of the pandemic right now and this is just a time to lay low.

BASH: And back to the vaccine, but more broadly again, the HHS Secretary Alex Azar said yesterday that he couldn't give a precise number of how many people have been vaccinated, but that they will get those numbers. Do you feel confident that this is being tracked properly?

GOUNDER: Well, I think this is one of the unfortunate things about how public health departments really have been gutted over years now. In particular, since the 2008-2009 recession, we've lost 50,000 public health workers, they haven't been up in able to upgrade their information technology systems for tracking and so while I think everybody's going to be making their best efforts, it's again, it's sort of like trying to build a plane while flying it. This is going to be a very challenge process.

[12:40:02]

BASH: No question. Thank you so much Dr. Celine Gounder for that. Appreciate it.

And join CNN on Friday night as we look deeper into vaccination skepticism in a new town hall The Color of COVID, The Vaccines Friday night at 10:00 Eastern.

Up next, the President digs in and reacts to the Senate Majority Leader acknowledging Joe Biden is the President-elect.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:45:07]

BASH: President Trump's resistance to any concession is unrelenting today, now targeting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on a tweet after the Republican and close ally congratulated President-elect Joe Biden. Let's discuss this with Laura Barron-Lopez, National Political Reporter for POLITICO and Michael Shear, White House Correspondent for The New York Times.

Hello to you both. Michael, I'll start with you covering the White House. What are you hearing from your sources about how the President reacted to the Senate Majority Leader stating the obvious finally?

MICHAEL SHEAR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, he reacted as you imagine he would react, which is to say not graciously and, you know, not with a sense that it's time to move on. I mean, President-elect Biden made that point in a speech a couple of nights ago that, you know, the Electoral College has spoken and now it's time to turn the page.

The Majority Leader, as you said, essentially said the same thing which cleared the way for, I think, a number of people in the Republican Party that gives them a little bit of cover to do the same. And yet the President is not there, and I think his tweet directly to Senator McConnell urging Republicans to learn how to fight is evidence of that.

But so is the -- or the tweets today even continuing to sort of rant about his 75 million votes which, of course, ignores the fact that that 7 million shy of the actual winner President-elect Biden. And so I think, you know, anyone who thought that -- who's out there that thought that the President was going to somehow come around at some point and offer a gracious concession is probably smoking something.

BASH: Yes. The -- some version of the tweet that we just showed was as predictable as the sun rising this morning --

SHEAR: Right.

BASH: -- in the east. Laura, I want to ask about what Kamala Harris, the Vice President-elect said about this theme this morning. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- President Trump, what are your thoughts on his reluctance to acknowledge the election

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: In this democracy of ours as Americans, which is our democracy is stronger than any one man or woman, it is about the people. And the people spoke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, Laura, she's staying diplomatic, a different tone from what we finally heard from Joe Biden, the night that the Electoral College certified that he would be the President-elect, where he was much more pointed than ever before.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Right, even as the President. When you do a cursory scan of President Trump's tweets, I know that we're used to his statements, but there is frankly stunning that the vast majority of his tweets have a disclaimer slapped on them now saying that these are disputed, these are false claims and he's continuing to do them since the election.

But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their new administration, despite what President Trump is doing, they're really trying to stick with the message that they had in the general election, which is we think that we can work with Republicans.

And Joe Biden has repeated that, he, you know, he and his staffers have said, just wait and see that Biden will be able to work with Mitch McConnell. And there are plenty of skeptical Democrats who think that they should take a more adversarial approach to work with Republicans. But, so far, I think what we heard from the Vice President-elect Harris, and what we're hearing from President-elect Biden is, you know, a calmer, more united tone because they want to be able to work with Republicans.

BASH: Yes. And sticking with you, Laura, we heard earlier this hour from President-elect Biden when he announced that Pete Buttigieg would be his Transportation Secretary nominee, and he put it in a broader context of all of the diversity among the people he has appointed so far. You talk about, you know, united front when it comes to reaching across the aisle, but do you feel that that message is getting heard among the many interests and interest groups that are pushing him to be even more diverse?

BARRON-LOPEZ: There's certainly been rumblings from Democrats. There are the different factions of the party. The progressives are more establishment. The progressives are still waiting to see more of the champions that they want there, though they were happy with the appointments of Gina McCarthy as the climate czar and Jennifer Granholm as the head of the Energy Department. They saw allies in those two names.

Throughout the campaign, they did not -- they -- progressives we're not very fond of Buttigieg but so far they've been holding their fire about him. So --

BASH: Yes.

BARRON-LOPEZ: -- Biden has been pushing that, look, he had nine precedent setting, you know, appointments and there's no Democrats that are really attacking him aggressively. I think a lot of them are still waiting to see the full slate.

[12:50:20]

BASH: Yes. And real quick, Michael, the A.G., the Attorney General nominee, we still have -- we haven't gotten that yet from Joe Biden. Are you hearing anything? We have some names, Judge Merrick Garland, Doug Jones, Sally Yates, Deval Patrick, what's your sense?

SHEAR: Right. And I think there was some reporting about Governor Cuomo as well being at least under consideration. Look, I think that they're really struggling with that one. There's, as Laura said, there's tons of competing interests and competing pressures. Gender, race, ideology, that one, I think they're trying to get that one before Christmas along with the CIA director, which also hasn't come out. And we'll see if they can make that work.

BASH: Michael Shear, Laura Barron-Lopez, thank you so much for your reporting. Appreciate it. And coming up, President-elect Biden has a message for Georgia and for the voters who are going to be voting in the Senate run off there. He says the stakes for him and Democrats couldn't be higher. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Early voting is underway in Georgia and the stakes for President-elect Biden could not be higher. The outcome of the two senate runoff races on January 5th will determine control the Senate and the fate of Biden's Cabinet picks and the direction of his agenda.

[12:55:05]

Joining me now is Stephen Fowler, Political Reporter for Georgia Public Broadcasting and Tia Mitchell, Washington Correspondent for The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Hello to you both. First question to you to you, Tia, about Biden going to campaign for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock yesterday. The question is about voter turnout. We obviously saw it as a record high during the presidential election, run offs are always different. What are you seeing so far now?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION: Well, what we're seeing so far is that turnout is actually higher thus far compared to the general election when it comes to early voting. Of course, we don't expect overall turnout to surpass the general election, but we do think that this runoff turnout is going to, you know, far surpass the turnout rate from previous runoff. There's a lot of interest in this runoff, pretty unprecedented.

BASH: Yes, it sure is. One of the other questions that I'm fascinated to learn the answer to is how the President beating the drum on what he claims is election fraud is going to affect Republican voters and voting in Georgia. And Stephen, my colleague, Kyung Lah was there. She spoke to voters waiting in line to vote early. Listen to what they told her.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What is snow flurrying right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would have worn more layers if I knew it was going to be like this.

LAH: It's like you haven't left.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, this election is too important.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our votes should mean something. They don't mean anything now.

LAH (voice-over): But they still voted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just voted early voting and we're thrilled to have voted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: So that's great example. Our votes don't mean anything, but we're voting anyway. I mean, those are the people who are actually there. The question is who's actually not going because they're listening to the President.

STEPHEN FOWLER, POLITICAL REPORTER, GEORGIA PUBLIC BROADCASTING: Right. So, a lot of the voters that I've talked to that are still in this belief that President Trump did win the election, and that the election was rigged, are still getting out and voting. And so, you can't really explain this duality of I believe the system is rigged, but I'm participating in the system.

But that's what we're seeing on the ground here. That's why you're seeing Vice President Mike Pence come repeatedly. That's why you're seeing Dan Crenshaw filming videos of him parachuting into Georgia to help get out the vote. Because at the end of the day, no matter what happened in November, there is still an election in January that people do believe their vote is still going to count, and it will.

BASH: Yes, it will and it does. What about the money, Tia, you know, so much money is pouring in to Georgia, Republicans and Democrats? I believe, so far, it's been over, there you see it, $460 million, almost evenly split looks like Republicans are up a bit. How is that affecting things?

MITCHELL: Well, when you're on the ground in Georgia, it's every ad and every TV commercial break and on the radio. And even when you log onto social media, it's ads before videos on YouTube. So, you cannot avoid the effects of this spending. And, again, the core goal of all this spending is to turn out voters because this runoff hinges so much on which side can get most of its -- more of its voters engaged and ready to come out and cast their vote.

BASH: And Stephen, are you seeing the money being spent in more creative ways? I mean, obviously, we all see TV ads, we assume it's being spent on getting out the vote but because they have a lot to play with, are they doing things considering the fact that it's a run off and an unusual date that we haven't seen?

FOWLER: I think we've just seen an unprecedent amount of attention. People have said that Georgia is like the political center of the universe right now. But it feels more like a black hole, just sucking in time and attention and everything.

I've gotten more campaign mailers and I have Christmas cards. You know, I've watched more David Perdue, Jon Ossoff ads and I have my favorite TV shows, because it's just inundating people with this. And you're seeing, you know, micro targeting, you know, individual issues that you had never imagined somebody spending a six-figure ad buy on trying to get those votes out.

BASH: That is so interesting that traditional mailers are still coming in the way that they used to when, you know -- when I started out covering politics, we used to go to people's houses to see the kind of messaging that they were getting. And, you know, of late, it seemed as though it was much more virtual, but the fact that they're still coming in and its snail mail is quite noteworthy.

Well, thank you both for your reporting. We are definitely going to be talking more to you. As you said, it is the political center of the universe or a black hole or both. We'll see what happens. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

FOWLER: Thank you.

BASH: And thank you for joining us. Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage right now.