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U.S. Confirms Massive Russia-Linked Hack Against Federal Agencies; Deaths, Hospitalizations Rising in Pennsylvania as Vaccines Arrive; Trump's Focus Elsewhere amid Pandemic, Russia Hack Fallout. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired December 17, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: After a massive data breach of some of the government's most critical agencies, federal officials are still trying to figure out the scope of the damage and the intent of the attack. Right now, Russia is suspected to be behind the hack.

The president's former Homeland Security adviser is now sounding the alarm, Tom Bossert, saying that the magnitude of this national security breach is hard to overstate, in an opinion piece. The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months.

Joining me right now is CNN's Alex Marquardt for more on this. Alex, you've had great reporting on this. What more are you learning?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, this is very much an ongoing operation and U.S. officials are nowhere near being able to figure out the full extent of the access that the Russians have had in this intrusion. The intrusion -- they got into these systems earlier in the spring, six to nine months, as you say, and it was only a couple of days ago that the U.S. government says that they actually realized this.

Now, this is akin to -- this is how a national security agency, former top official, put it to me. Imagine coming home to your house and finding the burglars have been there several months and now you're going through room-to-room figuring what was taken, what has moved, what has changed, that's where the U.S. government is right now.

There was a joint statement put out last night by the FBI, by the intelligence community, by the cyber arm of the Department of Homeland Securty. They said that they learned about this several days ago, they said that it was an ongoing operation by what we have learned are suspected Russian hackers. And they go on to say, this is a developing situation and while we continue to work to understand the full extent of this campaign, we know this compromise has affected networks within the federal government. We are also still trying to learn exactly which departments and agencies have been affected so far. We understand that commerce, agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, that cyber arm that I mentioned, which is also known as CISA. The treasury department, according to The Washington Post, has also been hit.

And, Kate, of course, this could not come at a more sensitive time when this country is very vulnerable. We are transitioning from one presidential administration to the next. We have heard nothing, in fact, from President Trump about these intrusions. And now you have, as you mentioned, his former Homeland Security adviser, Tom Bossert, writing in The New York Times. I want to read a little bit more of that op-ed.

President Trump must get past his grievances about the election and govern for the remainder of his term.

[11:35:05]

This moment requires unity, purpose and discipline. We are sick, distracted and now under cyber attack. Leadership is essential.

There are going to be a lot of people calling for a response, a robust response from the U.S. to convince Russia that it is not worth it for them to carry out these kinds of attacks. This, Kate, is going to be one of the first and biggest issues that incoming President Biden is going to have to deal with.

BOLDUAN: Alex, thank you.

So, meanwhile, in Russia today, President Vladimir Putin was holding his marathon annual press conference and he responded for the first time to the CNN investigation into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader, Alexey Navalny.

CNN's Clarissa Ward and her team had been working for months on that investigation and report. She's joining me now once again from Moscow.

Clarissa, it wasn't an outright denial from Putin. What exactly did he say?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're exactly right, Kate. Essentially, he did not refute a lot of the core facts of our story, essentially, which is that, yes, FSB operatives were trailing Navalny for a long time.

But what he said was this makes perfect sense because Alexey Navalny was working with American intelligence services. Although he didn't call him Alexey Navalny, he called him only the Berlin patient, making a reference to the fact that he was staying in that hospital in Berlin. He doesn't like to use his name because he sees him as such a threat, one would assume.

So he said, basically, it would be natural to have FSB operatives follow someone who is working with U.S. intelligence agencies, and take a listen to what he said next. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT: In this case, of course, the special services should keep an eye on him. But it doesn't mean at all that he needs to be poisoned. Who needs him anyway? If they wanted to, they probably would have followed it through.

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WARD: If they wanted to, they probably would have finished it. Essentially, what he's saying there is, just because Russian security forces were following him, that doesn't mean they actually poisoned him. And if they had poisoned him, believe me, he would be dead. That is basically what we are to understand from President Putin.

Now, the thing he didn't answer, Kate, the crucial question here is, these weren't just ordinary goons or thugs who were following Alexey Navalny around. They were doctors and toxicologists and chemists. They were people with expertise in chemical weapons with knowledge of how to use them. And most importantly they were in regular contact with a laboratory in Moscow called the Signal Institute that CNN and Bellingcat has ascertained has been involved in researching and developing Novichok. Kate?

BOLDUAN: That is the poison that Alexey Navalny had in his system. Clarissa, thank you.

Coming up, the deadliest day the country has seen so far in the pandemic, the deadliest day for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well. Pennsylvania's secretary of health will be here.

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BOLDUAN: Coronavirus cases in Pennsylvania have now soared past the half million mark. The commonwealth also broke its record again for the highest deaths from coronavirus in a single day, doing that just yesterday.

On the very same day, seven more hospitals in the commonwealth received their first shipments of the coronavirus vaccine. It's the whiplash that Sanjay Gupta was talking about at the top of the hour, the good and bad together.

Joining me right now is the secretary of health for Pennsylvania, Dr. Rachel Levine. Thank you for being here.

Yesterday, the deadliest day relating to this virus in the commonwealth, what are you up against, Doctor? How do you describe things right now?

DR. RACHEL LEVINE, PENNSYLVANIA SECRETARY OF HEALTH: Well, we are obviously firmly in the fall and now winter resurgence. We are seeing a significant number of cases per day, 9,000, 10,000, 11,000. And we've been seeing that for several weeks now. There's always a lag and two or three weeks after you see the increases in cases, you see more hospitalizations and then you see more deaths.

BOLDUAN: How are the hospitals doing right now?

LEVINE: The hospitals are stable. We keep very close track of hospitalization rates as well as intensive care unit beds and ventilator usage. And all of the hospitals are strained, they are doing okay and we're watching metrics carefully.

BOLDUAN: Speaking of metrics, on the opposite side of this coin, if you will, how many people have received the vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine so far in the commonwealth?

LEVINE: Well, we'll be -- at the end of the week, 97,500 people will have received the Pfizer vaccine. We're very pleased that even though we had snow that all of the vaccine shipments are proceeding and we anticipate to fulfill the week's administration of the vaccine by the end of the week.

BOLDUAN: That's great news. And I'm curious, who is tracking this in the commonwealth and how? I ask that because we don't have numbers yet from the federal government on where the vaccines are, who exactly is getting the vaccine in each state.

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It's a huge operation. How is it going in Pennsylvania?

LEVINE: It's going very well in Pennsylvania so far. We are distributing the Pfizer vaccine to 83 different hospitals in Pennsylvania. And, again, all the hospitals are receiving their shipments, and then working very hard to administer the vaccine. The vaccine right now is being administered to health care workers. And we anticipate, of course, the Moderna vaccine potentially next week.

BOLDUAN: Every state, it looks like, doesn't have enough of the -- in the first shipment to cover all of the frontline health care workers. That seems to be across the board, how it is. How sure are you going to be at the end of the week in terms covering health care workers in the commonwealth?

LEVINE: Well, short isn't the word I would use. We never expected to deal or to cover everyone in phase 1a, which includes health care workers and then actually seniors and staff in long-term care facilities. That mission is going to take weeks and weeks. And that's what we've anticipated. Of course, we don't determine what we receive from Operation Warp Speed. They tell us how much we're going to get and then we work to make sure that it's all distributed and administered.

BOLDUAN: We heard from I think one other state, I think it was New Mexico, who said some doses weren't used because they were concerned about a drop in temperature. Have you had any issues because of the extreme cold that these Pfizer vaccines need to be kept at, any issues that caused you concern in terms of distribution?

LEVINE: No, we've had no problems in terms of loss of temperature or any concerns about the stability of the product.

BOLDUAN: An interesting thing about this whole thing is the pharmacists -- I was talking about it at the top of the show. Pharmacists have found that they can squeeze out additional doses from the vaccine vials than they originally thought. The FDA is saying, go ahead, use it if you can. Are you seeing that in Pennsylvania?

LEVINE: We have heard that in Pennsylvania and we're very pleased with the FDA's recommendations so we can get more people immunized.

BOLDUAN: How many more -- so it's like an additional dose in each vial. How many more people could that help in Pennsylvania?

LEVINE: Well, if it's one more dose per vial, then we would be able to get at least significant number. There's 195 vials in a tray and, you know, each -- if each one that went to a hospital was able to be -- to get that, we could do the numbers and we'll get more people immunized.

BOLDUAN: Good news all around no matter how it goes, no matter where the number lands. Doctor, thank you very much.

LEVINE: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up, a massive cyber attack, a raging pandemic, and COVID relief stalled in Congress. Where is President Trump?

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BOLDUAN: All this hour, we have been reporting on the serious crises that are facing the country. So here are a few simple questions now. What did the president do yesterday or, so far, today, to address the coronavirus pandemic with the country now in a full blown crisis? And what did the president do yesterday or, so far, today, to address the massive hack of government agencies that's being called the most serious external risk and threat that the U.S. faces? If you are stumped, you are not alone.

Let me bring in John Harwood for more on this. John, for a president who is desperately trying to hang onto power or even one who is not, he is not doing his job. What is he doing?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What he is doing so far as we can tell, Kate, is trying to convince other people and perhaps himself that he didn't actually lose the election to Joe Biden, that it was stolen from him, trying to convince some of those people that he convinces to send him money for future political endeavors, perhaps another run for president, but whatever will satisfy him in the days and years after he leaves the White House.

Secondly, focused on using the awesome power that he has of the presidential pardon to try to protect his friends. And he has got a lot of friends that landed in criminal hot water who could benefit from a pardon, and some of those people know things about him that they haven't told prosecutors. And so by pardoning them, he could protect himself. He Pardoned Michael Flynn and he's got a bunch of requests coming in. He stated his ability to pardon himself as well.

And then, finally, possibly using his power to put upon his enemies through the justice system. He has complained privately and publicly that the Justice Department has not been more aggressive toward Hunter Biden, certainly criticized Bill Barr for not publicizing that. Bill Barr is, of course, out of a job.

Now, he did tweet this morning that he has nothing to do with the potential prosecution of Hunter Biden. That would seem to signal that he is not inclined to force through a special counsel, as some people speculated about, because, obviously if he does that, under threat of getting fired, his acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, after Bill Barr leaves, declines to or does appoint a special counsel, that would make it appear that the president is involved.

So he is focused on his friends and his enemies and the election that he lost but he's pretending he didn't lose.

BOLDUAN: And also the president is renewing the threat to veto critical military funding. I don't know if I consider that actually doing something. What is he saying?

HARWOOD: Well, he is saying that over the provision that he thinks unduly protects social media companies that he thinks are against him, that he will veto that bill.

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House and Senate have both passed with more than enough votes to override his veto, but it is another thing to actually vote to override.

And there are consequences in a national security sense. You talked about that Russian hack. There are cyber security protections in that defense bill that would be relevant if he vetoes it. So there's going to be a lot of counter-pressure on the president on this threat, but that's the one he issued this morning.

BOLDUAN: John, thank you.

Coming up, after the deadliest day yet in the pandemic, an FDA panel is going to be deciding whether to green light the Moderna vaccine. Stay with us.

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