Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Missing in Action as Millions Suffer and U.S. Attacked by Russia; States Told by Federal Government They Will Receive Fewer Pfizer Doses Next Week; Winter Storm Hitting East Coast Could Impact Vaccine Distribution; Biden Will Not Stand by in The Face of Cyber Attacks on U.S. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired December 17, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It's remarkable that this is the president of the United States who spends more time tweeting about for example the stock market than he does about COVID deaths for example he doesn't talk about.

Is not participating in any kind of an education project for Americans about how they ought to get the vaccine, and he could be a great use right now to get people to get those vaccines when they are available to them. But instead, his focus is on the ratings of Fox News, what's -- I mean, it's everything else other than his job.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: It's incongruous how he is fighting so hard for a job he doesn't seem to want to do.

BORGER: Exactly.

BALDWIN: What about Joe Biden? Because the president-elect is also in a tricky situation. Obviously, the country needs a leader. He's not yet the president of the United States, but everyone is looking to Biden for leadership. Can you just talk about the balancing act that President-elect Biden is involved in.

BORGER: Well, it is a delicate balancing act, but he's proceeding as presidents-elect should proceed. He is naming his cabinet -- despite the fact that Donald Trump said he shouldn't be doing that. But, of course, he is.

He is thinking about continuity of government. He is talking about how to produce more vaccines, how to get at-home tests, how to move this country forward away from COVID and get the economy under control. That is what the president-elect ought to be doing. It is delicate, and he keeps talking about this.

And Brooke, you've heard this time and time again, I am going to represent all Americans, Joe Biden says, not just the people who voted for me, but the people who did not vote for me. So he is attempting to reach out. But so long as Donald Trump is standing there saying don't accept the

handshake, don't do it, it's going to be very difficult for Joe Biden. Because those supporters, 74 million of them -- and I'm not saying that all of them believe this -- but are going to listen to the president until he says, OK, I'm gone, and then I will fight Joe Biden from the outside, which, of course, he can do.

BALDWIN: To the point about how Trump's, you know, not doing the job he continues to fight to hold onto, he's pushing his allies in Congress, Gloria, to challenge the election on January 6th. We know from Mitch McConnell, he's advising his party not to protest.

We heard today from Congressman Mo Brooks and 18 other House Republicans who asked McConnell and Pelosi to conduct voter fraud and election theft hearings and investigations. What do you expect to see on January 6th?

BORGER: I think you might see, in the House, a bunch of sound and fury, but nothing is going to happen. And it's a shameful theatrical exercise that will go nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

But these members -- remember, there were 126 of them who signed on to that ridiculous lawsuit before the Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court dismissed out of hand. They're going to, you know, they're going to say what they want to say. You have people like Josh Hawley in the Senate saying, well, I haven't decided what I'm going to do.

And, you know, Mitch McConnell is telling them, this is a fool's errand. Why are you doing this? And they've got their own political reasons. The first political reason is to pay homage to Donald Trump and his supporters. But it has absolutely nothing to do with Joe Biden putting his hand on the Bible on January 20th. That will occur.

BALDWIN: Hey, at least Mitch McConnell is telling him not to do it finally, Gloria Borger.

BORGER: Right, finally. Better late than never.

BALDWIN: Thank you very much. Speak again soon.

Coming up next, just as vaccines are being shipped out across the country, the biggest snowstorm in years. What is the impact?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:00]

BALDWIN: Getting some breaking news this afternoon on the delivery, on the roll-out of some of these Pfizer vaccines. Confusion among the states over how many Pfizer vaccines actually to expect next week. So let's go back to Sara Murray. She's all over the distribution angle of this vaccine. And so, Sara, what's the deal?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're hearing from a number of states who say they've heard from the federal government that their upcoming vaccine allocations of this Pfizer vaccine are going to be reduced.

Now obviously, this is a concern to them. We know that this is in tight supply already. So any time those number go down, it's pretty alarming for the state officials to see. Now Pfizer is saying, look, this is not a production issue on our end. They said in a statement that they have millions more doses sitting in a warehouse but as of now they haven't received shipment instructions for the additional doses.

Officials in the government are telling us, look, this is not about reducing the number of doses that states are going to get. This is about trying to spread this out over the course of the week so that there's kind of, you know, a cascade of doses states will be receiving throughout the week.

But look, this is really frustrating for state officials. We know that the Pfizer vaccine is really complicated. Has to be kept at these ultra-cold conditions. It has to be thawed. It has to be used pretty quickly after that.

So they're really trying to choreograph getting health care workers lined up, getting nursing home residents lined up so that everyone can get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

And they're saying it's really difficult to do this when we're constantly seeing these shifting numbers. Now this is the kind of thing that might straighten out over time. You know, we knew this rollout was not going to be seamless. This is a huge vaccination effort. But again we're starting to see that kind of frustration, confusion bubbling up from state officials already -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Got it. Sara, thank you. So again to reiterate what she just said and Dr. Leana Wen, I want to bring you back in, not about reducing doses but spreading doses throughout the week. This could be a blip. This could be more. How concerning is this?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think I'm concerned about what this means longer term. As in, what's happening with our coordination efforts.

[15:40:00]

Maybe this is one mistake or one error, but I hope that this is not part of a pattern. And already as Sara was saying, this entire effort is extremely complex. And it's hard for hospitals, for example, to plan. Basically all these hospitals are not able to vaccinate their health care workers, much less there are dentists, there are primary care physicians, there are people who are working in the community who don't yet have access to this vaccine. And I think this raises a lot of questions of when are all these health care workers and nursing home residents who are part of that 1A priority group, when is it exactly that they're supposed to get the vaccine?

And states we know are also hugely underfunded in this effort and I wonder if lack of funding has also contributed to the coordination problems that we're seeing.

BALDWIN: I'm just looking down at my notes. So Pfizer put out a statement, the company saying, as Sara said, not having production issues. No shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed. They said we have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but as of now we've not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.

We do know, Dr, Wen, that the Trump administration decided not to mandate how states distribute the vaccine. Could that contribute to this?

WEN: Well, I do think it's good to allow states autonomy because there are states that have different needs. And maybe in some places there are more hospitals. Maybe there are places that have more community health centers. I mean I think in the long run it makes sense to have states controlling the process.

What I'm concerned about, though, is where the -- where the coordination problem is falling through. And we really need to pinpoint that because we don't want this problem to occur later on. When we have a situation where every single day, we have more than 3,000 people who are dying. A delay of one day means that there could have been lives that we might have saved if those doses arrived when they were supposed to.

BALDWIN: Dr. Wen, thank you so much for jumping back on TV to analyze that breaking news. We'll come back to that.

Also, huge story today, this powerful winter storm system has been blanketing parts of the northeast and heavy snow causing dangerous and deadly road conditions. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is live in Boston for us to -- quite a snowy scene there. How are people faring in Boston -- Derek?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, as if 2020 needed another hurdle to jump over, right, Brooke? Now we have this massive, coordinated distribution of a vaccine amongst a huge snowstorm that just pounded the entire East Coast, including where I am in downtown Boston.

You know, the mayor of New Jersey, he -- or excuse me, the governor of New Jersey he actually had a press statement this morning talking about how the vaccine distribution was delayed minorly this morning amongst the snowstorms.

I reached out to FedEx, one of the several distribution platforms they are using to take that Pfizer vaccine and move it across some of the most populated areas across the eastern seaboard. Talked to the global communications adviser. She told me that they have many contingency plans in places for just this scenario. Just this event.

One being a sense-ware I.D. tag. They actually place it on the parcels that contain not only our Christmas presents but also our vaccines that are getting distributed. So what happens is they know precisely where each shipment is along that processing route from start to finish. If there are any hiccups along the route, they'll know where it is, and they can put that plan in action.

They have 15 meteorologists on staff working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week monitoring storms just like this and over 180 personnel that coordinate every single logistic. So they have got contingency plans in place. So does UPS they are confident that snowstorms like this, not only today, but in the future, this winter, will not interrupt the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Thank goodness for contingency plans. Derek, to you and the crew, be warm. Thank you for jumping out in the snow for us, appreciate, just to see.

VAN DAM: You're so welcome.

BALDWIN: I know. We appreciate it. Thank you.

We are getting new word from Moscow today on CNN's investigation into the poisoning of Alexey Navalny. President Putin's response, not exactly denying everything.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:45:00]

BALDWIN: Chilling remarks today from Russian President Vladimir Putin at his annual news conference. Putin basically laughed off CNN's recent reporting about the near fatal poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How about that? In this exclusive CNN Bellingcat investigation we've learned that an elite Russian security team had been stalking Navalny for months. A team well versed in nerve agents like the Novichok that almost killed him in August of last year.

CNN's Clarissa Ward is the one just fronting all of this incredible stuff coming out of Russia. And Clarissa, incredible investigation. Both, you know, the CNN team and Bellingcat, I cannot imagine what it must be like to have Vladimir Putin respond to your reporting saying, in part, that as we just heard, you know, if Russia had wanted to kill Navalny, it would have finished the job. What do you make of that?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, it's certainly pretty chilling words but I think it's important for our viewers to remember that Alexey Navalny would be dead if it hadn't been for the pilot who on that flight from Tomsk to Moscow made the decision just one hour in to divert the flight and land in the city of Omsk. [15:50:00]

He was supposed to be on that plane another three hours. And we've spoken to many toxicologists, all of them agree he never would have made it had it not been for that pilot.

Now the reason that Vladimir Putin is saying this is that, of course he would be followed, Putin said, because he was working -- Navalny this is -- with U.S. intelligence services. And if someone is working with U.S. intelligence services on Russian soil it follows therefore that Russian agents would be following them around.

So it's almost like he's not really refuting the sort of core data of our report which is sort of surprising to hear. Now having said that, Brooke, he neglected to address a really key component of our investigation. Which is that these weren't just ordinary thugs or heavies who were following Alexey Navalny around.

There were doctors, toxicologists, chemists, medics, experts who understood about how nerve agents work. And not only that, who have been in regular contact during specific intervals that actually relate to the timing of Navalny's movements with a laboratory here in Moscow called the Signal Institute, that Bellingcat and CNN believe or certainly have good reason to believe has been in researching and developing Novichok.

That is the sort of the overwhelming burden of evidence that makes this appear like deeply sinister behavior, and he did not, at any point in this 4 hour and 40 minute press conference acknowledge that allegation -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: We know, Clarissa, that today Navalny submitted himself to questioning by Russian authorities, it took place in Germany. Can you tell me more about that?

WARD: Well, so one of the things that President Putin said today in his press conference in terms of why he hasn't opened up a criminal investigation is that he's been waiting to get more information, more data from German authorities.

And part of that would be a sort of testimony if you will from Alexey Navalny. Navalny has neglected or decided for whatever reason not to do that up until this point. But now he has gone and done that. He has submitted himself to the German prosecutor's office, has answered all their questions on behalf of the Russians.

With the hopes perhaps that that now will result in some substantive movement in terms of the criminal investigation being open. Although I would say, Brooke, do not hold your breath.

One other chilling thing that it was impossible not to notice during this entire press conference, and Navalny came up on a couple of occasions, he never mentions Navalny by name. He will only refer to him as the blogger or the patient in Berlin. Clearly, he sees him as some kind of a threat. BALDWIN: Who does that remind you of? Clarissa Ward, thank you very

much. Joe Biden will not be inaugurated as our next president for 34 more days. But his team is already ben briefed on the cybersecurity attacks underway against the U.S. government. These attacks believed to be carried out -- speaking of Russia -- by the Russian military intelligence. They are so massive that federal officials are still trying to grasp the entire scope. It will take months to know the full scale of the damage to the U.S. cybersecurity.

CNN's national security correspondent Alex Marquardt is with me now. And Alex, first let's talk about the president-elect's response. What is Biden saying?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It's not just what he says here, Brooke. It's because it stands in stark contrast to what the president, the current president is saying, and that is absolutely nothing.

Since this came out five days ago that the U.S. has been the subject of this massive intrusion, almost year-long intrusion. We've heard nothing from President Trump. But just a short time ago, we did hear from President-elect Joe Biden in a very forceful statement.

I'm going to read part of it. He says that, among other things, they will be imposing substantial costs on those responsible for such malicious attacks. He goes on to say, as president, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.

Now, there are going to be growing calls for the U.S. to exact costs on Russia, so that they are deterred from carrying out attacks like this. As you noted, and as Biden says in a statement, his team has been briefed. I spoke with an official from the Cyber Infrastructure and Security Agency, which is the main cyber agency in this country.

They said they did brief the Biden team on Monday. This, Brooke, is going to be because of the scale of this attack, it is going to go well into the Biden administration. It's going to be one of the biggest and most important, most pressing matters that Biden will deal with on day one.

BALDWIN: Which is, you know, when you read the Tom Bossert op-ed in "The New York Times," you know, he's calling at the very end for -- first of all, to a wake up for all Americans. That this is a massive deal. We don't even know how deep and huge it is for Trump to pay attention. And obviously, this is something that Biden going to have to catch for months to come. This is unlike anything the U.S. has ever seen. What are cyber security officials saying?

MARQUARDT: Yes, Brooke, we often hear about sophisticated attacks. This was extraordinarily sophisticated.

[15:55:00]

This was something that the U.S. government only heard of or found out about several days ago, but we now know that it went into effect, that these intrusions started back in March. So since March the Russians have been inside our systems. They continue to be inside U.S. government systems.

Today that cyber agency which is known as CISA warned that there are other ways that they got in that have been revealed yet and that their tactics that they're using that we have not seen yet.

So much remains to be seen. There is so much forensic analysis that needs to be done to discover the extent of this massive intrusion -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: And just quickly, Trump has yet to address this, period. Correct?

MARQUARDT: He has not said a word.

BALDWIN: Stunning. Alex Marquardt, thank so very much.

We have breaking news on the COVID crisis here in America, confusion among the states over how many Pfizer vaccines to expect next week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)