Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Southern California ICU Beds Reach Capacity; Celebrity COVID-19 Vaccinations Today Include Sanjay Gupta and Mike Pence; Interview with Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO). Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired December 18, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: More than 3,200 deaths were reported yesterday and we have had a 9/11-magnitude loss of life on three different days this week, and the president still has not said a consoling word.

Fortunately, science has brought us a light at the end of the tunnel: actual shots of the coronavirus vaccine. We just learned that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has received the shot; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that he will too, and he urged all Americans to do the same.

Just ahead, we will show you the moments when the vice president, the surgeon general and our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta all received the Pfizer vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I felt totally comfortable getting this vaccine today. I just want to say that because I think so many people have asked me that, and I think it's a very fair question.

Things moved really, really fast here, and I think maybe that's sometimes caused trepidation. You know, did it move too fast. But as Dr. Rice just said, the critical steps in terms of determining why something's effective, why something is safe, does it work for all these different demographics? Those were the steps that were not skipped.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: First to California, where the crisis is beyond a simple surge. The state just reported its highest number of coronavirus deaths ever in a single day. And over the past week, the state has seen a jaw-dropping 270,000 new cases. The situation is so dire there that Southern California hospitals are at zero ICU capacity -- that's right, zero.

With me now to talk more about the crisis that is unfolding in the state is Dr. Christina Ghaly. She's the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Doctor, it's great to see you, thank you so much for coming on. And

you've described this moment as being under siege. Tell us just how dire the situation in Southern California is right now.

CHRISTINA GHALY, DIRECTOR, L.A. COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES: It's completely devastating, and this is a point that no one wanted to get to, but I think the reality people have to face is, this is where we're at.

The hospitals are full, the ICUs are full, the emergency departments are full. Ambulances are having difficulty being able to offload patients. And all of this is an incredibly dangerous situation for everyone. And I think what's important for people to realize is this will affect patients with COVID as well as those without.

KEILAR: So what happens for patients who go to the hospital and may need an ICU but the ICUs are full?

GHALY: Hospitals will do -- and are doing -- everything they can to take care of the patients who need that critical level of care, so they're moving ICUs into non-typical licensed bedspace. They're building ICU space and setting it up in operating rooms, in recovery room areas, on medical-surgical wards, rooms that normally would care for one patient now will have two patients in those rooms, or if it's a double room it'll have three patients in the room.

They're expanding that care space out anywhere they can. The limiting factor here, though, isn't space and it isn't supplies, it's staff. The people that work in an ICU are highly trained, and when there's not sufficient highly trained staff to be able to care for the ICU patients, you end up with a situation where you either have people without that high level of training caring for the patients, or you have those highly-level trained nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists taking care of more patients than they would otherwise.

KEILAR: I mean, that is scary, to think that you may -- I mean, it sounds like you're saying in some of these cases, right now, you may not get the care that you need or you may not get the care that you would otherwise have and be able to rely on.

GHALY: That's right. And that's exactly what we're experiencing here in Southern California and Los Angeles County, and I know it's playing out across the state and the nation.

The level of care that people are accustomed to, that people want, that people get in the hospital system across the United States, is just not possible when the hospitals are strained and overwhelmed as they are. And again, that will affect everybody.

So people who are having a heart attack or a stroke, or someone who has a serious fall or an injury, or someone who gets into a car accident, it's going to be more difficult to get that highest level of care in the hospital system right now. It doesn't just impact those who are having trouble breathing from COVID.

KEILAR: It's a very good point. Dr. Ghaly, thank you for being with us, joining us from Los Angeles.

GHALY: Thank you.

KEILAR: Now, to those high-profile shots in the arm for a major show of confidence in the COVID vaccine as a neurosurgeon at Emory University, our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, received his vaccination live on CNN. And he was joined by Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, who leads the Morehouse School of Medicine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Now we are both going to get this shot in our left arm --

VALERIE MONTGOMERY RICE, PRESIDENT AND DEAN, MOREHOUSE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Yes.

GUPTA: -- because we are right-handed, so they do --

RICE: That's right.

GUPTA: -- the non-dominant arm.

You know, it really does strike me that it's such an amazing scientific feat --

RICE: Oh my goodness.

GUPTA: -- and yet it's such a mundane act in the end.

RICE: Right, right, yes.

GUPTA: Right? It's --

RICE: Yes. I mean, that was a piece of cake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you ready?

GUPTA: I am ready, Katherine (ph) --

[14:05:00]

(CROSSTALK)

RICE: All right.

GUPTA: -- thank you.

I really feel good about today, I have to tell you.

RICE: Yes, I feel good, we're making progress to be able to do this at Grady, as we call it, "The Grady," you know --

GUPTA: The Grady.

RICE: -- having trained here, it has been one of the highlights of my career to be able to come back here and be a part of this continued advancement at Grady, so I'm really excited to do this.

GUPTA: I, by the way, as a surgeon, am also a little bit afraid of needles.

RICE: Yes. It's (ph) not (ph) scary, yes. You're not wincing at all.

GUPTA: Is it in?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's done.

GUPTA: It's done!

(LAUGHTER)

You are really good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

RICE: Oh yes, that's good, that's good.

GUPTA: Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any time.

RICE: All right.

GUPTA: Do you get thanked a lot for jabbing somebody?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do actually.

RICE: Yes, I mean, no, seriously.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Especially in the last couple days.

GUPTA: Thank you very much, Mary (ph) Katherine (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: A vote of trust in the vaccine also seen at the highest levels of government today, Vice President Mike Pence was inoculated just after the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, who stressed how critical it was to see an African-American person validate the vaccine publicly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME ADAMS, SURGEON GENERAL: And as the U.S. surgeon general and a black man, I am equally aware of the symbolic significance of my vaccination today. As I've discussed with faith leaders as recently as last night, the creation of these vaccines is a gift from above.

Vaccines, even ones that are 95 percent effective, will not alone end this pandemic. We must now do the necessary work to go from vaccines to vaccinations. It would truly be the greatest tragedy of all if disparities in COVID outcomes actually worsened because the people who could most benefit from this vaccine can't get it or won't take it. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We saw these leaders on camera getting the vaccine, but then there was the absence of the nation's top leader, the president. Moments before his V.P. got vaccinated, President Trump was busy tweeting about the Russia hoax, as he calls it, and there's no word if or when he will get the shot. President-elect Joe Biden is set to receive his vaccine next week.

Joining me now is E.R. doctor Richina Bicette who is medical director and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine.

You know, Doctor, we've been talking with folks at hospitals, they are celebrating the arrival of the vaccine. But today, there's also some confusion in some states including Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and Oregon because the federal government has told them to expect fewer doses of Pfizer's vaccine than first promised.

The Health and Human Service Department says there's been no reduction in supply, but that deliveries are being spread out over a longer timeframe. Is that something that is concerning at all to you?

RICHINA BICETTE, MEDICAL DIRECTOR AND ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Of course it's concerning, Brianna. The states are confused and I'm confused as well. On the one hand, we have governors and state officials who are saying yes, their vaccine allotments have been slashed. Then on the other hand, we have the Department of Health and Human Services saying that that's not true. So who do we believe?

Then of course you throw Pfizer in the mix, and Pfizer is saying that they have millions of doses of vaccine that are ready to go, but they haven't received any word on the shipments being sent out.

Now, this is the largest vaccination program in this country's history, so of course I do expect there to be some bumps along the road, but this kind of confusion, I think, is just a complete lapse on the government's part, and it just goes to add to the tally of the numerous ways that they've mishandled this pandemic from the very start.

KEILAR: So I understand that your hospital there, that you've administered all the vaccine you were allotted and there are still some frontline staffers who need to get vaccinated.

BICETTE: That is correct. There are hospitals in the Texas Medical Center that have run out of vaccine as of yesterday. Being on the ground, I think I can agree with state officials that it does seem as if vaccine allotment has been decreased, so those who signed up to receive the vaccine today and through the weekend are now waiting and hoping that a shipment comes in next week so that they can be vaccinated.

KEILAR: And have you been vaccinated, or when are you getting vaccinated? BICETTE: You know, Brianna, I can't wait for the day that I can say

that I am fully vaccinated against COVID-19. If it were an intraocular injection or a shot in the eye, I probably would still line up to --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Ugh.

BICETTE: I can't say (ph) that just yet, but there is nothing at this point in time that's going to stop me from becoming fully vaccinated.

KEILAR: OK, that is like my worst nightmare, what you just described. I've been having a hard enough time, even as I'm happily watching people get vaccinated here for COVID. OK, but so you haven't had the first shot?

BICETTE: I'm waiting, I'm waiting --

KEILAR: You're waiting.

BICETTE: -- to hopefully get my full vaccine.

KEILAR: OK, so the U.S. right now is experiencing, on average, 216,000 new cases a day for the last week. I'm wondering if you're feeling this in your hospital?

BICETTE: Absolutely. Here in the Texas Medical Center, you know, last week, we were at 100 percent ICU capacity and then things went down a little bit, we were at 97 percent. Today, we're back up to 100 percent ICU capacity and now, again, into our phase two surge beds.

[14:10:13]

In the TMC, we diagnose 3,700 new cases of COVID in a single day. Texas alone is seeing about 20,000 new cases of COVID in a day, we have almost 10,000 people in the state that are hospitalized with COVID, so we're definitely feeling the brunt of the Thanksgiving holiday travel, families gathering in the overall spike in COVID cases.

KEILAR: Dr. Bicette, thank you so much. We wish you luck, we hope the vaccine will find you shortly. Thank you so much for being on.

BICETTE: Fingers crossed, thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Next, President Trump's silent as the federal government scrambles to determine the scope of a widespread cyber-attack. Congressman Jason Crow will join me to explain why he calls this the equivalent of a cyber Pearl Harbor.

Plus, the defense secretary is now defending a decision to postpone meetings with Biden's transition team for two weeks.

And former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who recently got a pardon from the president, suggests using the military to redo the election. The secretary of the Army just responded. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:39]

KEILAR: We have new details today about the massive cyber-attack on government agencies and private entities here in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security's cyber arm says suspected Russian hackers used a variety of unidentified tactics and not just a single compromised software program.

In a statement, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency says -- and this is a quote -- "CISA has determined that this threat poses a grave risk to the federal government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations. CISA expects that removing this threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging for organizations."

Joining us now to discuss this is Democratic Congressman Jason Crow, he's also a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, I mean, first off, in general, I just want to get your reaction to this huge attack on the U.S.

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Brianna, I don't think we can overstate how dangerous this is for our country right now. Breathtaking is a word that certainly comes to mind for me, and that's why I referred to this earlier today as our modern-day cyber Pearl Harbor.

Both the depth and the breadth of the potential breach is incredible, we're still getting our arms around it but it seems to have been going on for much of this year undetected, and in fact we probably would not have even detected it had not a private cyber-security company almost stumbled upon the breach and was able to unravel what was happening.

But it looks like our own agencies probably wouldn't have been able to detect what was happening, so we have a major problem on our hands and the administration is not doing, right now, what needs to be done to lead us through this crisis.

KEILAR: So, look, as you mentioned, there's still a lot about this we don't know. But I think especially to laypeople out there who are trying to understand the magnitude of this, what could this breach do?

CROW: Well, there are 17 different critical infrastructure sectors within the United States. Just one of those critical infrastructure sectors is the financial industry. The financial industry has over 800,000 financial institutions, and we do believe the the financial industry was one of the impacted industries.

So what we believe the adversary did here was they created a backdoor in a widely used software system that was used to manage I.T. systems, and we think that almost 20,000 different entities, both private companies and government agencies, downloaded and used that software and might have backdoors into their system. And that backdoor would allow an adversary here to have complete, unfettered access to everything within their I.T. network. It's extremely dangerous, and it's going to be very difficult to even stop it.

We think that it's probably still ongoing as we sit here and have this discussion, which could be very dangerous not just for our national security and our troops deployed downrange, but for our intelligence community and of course our critical private infrastructure as well.

KEILAR: And right now the president isn't saying anything about this, right? He's been radio silent. What does that do to the situation?

CROW: Well, the president is still the commander-in-chief. Donald Trump still is the commander-in-chief for another few weeks. Instead of leading on this, communicating with the American people, directing resources, what instead is he doing? Well, let's take stock of that.

Number one, he has fired and gutted most of the senior leadership in the Pentagon. Number two, our senior cyber-security official was fired a couple of week ago for political reasons because the president didn't like what he had to say during interviews. And number three, he's threatening to actually veto -- and he probably will veto -- the defense bill, which actually has money and resources and authorities to address this very issue.

So the president is not just not leading on this, but he's actually creating barriers and standing in the way of dealing with this in the way that a commander-in-chief should.

KEILAR: CNN has learned today that the Pentagon has actually cancelled all transition meetings with the Biden-Harris team for a second day in a row. The Defense secretary says they're just being rescheduled for two weeks and that this was mutually agreed upon. The Biden team said today that that's not true.

Are you concerned about what's going on? What's your impression of what's going on?

CROW: Yes, I'm very concerned about that. I mean, listen, transitions are vulnerable in the best of times, when you're moving senior folks out of positions, putting new people in. Any transition, even when it's done very well, is a time of great vulnerability for our country.

[14:20:14]

But you insert a situation like we have right now, where the president is not cooperating, his teams are not cooperating, that transition was actually delayed by close to a month and they've cut off briefings for the folks that, in just a couple of weeks, are going to be in the driver's seat of dealing with this crisis? And it's a major problem.

I'm very concerned about the incoming administration's lack of access to information and how that's going to inhibit their ability to hit the ground running on day one. And it needs to stop. The president needs to lead, Donald Trump needs to step up and do the responsible thing for our national security and start doing these briefings so we can have a safe transition.

KEILAR: And speaking of, I want you to listen to something that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said about overturning the election results.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: He could order the -- within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. I mean, it's not unprecedented. I mean, these people out there talking about martial law, it's like it's something that we've never done. We've done -- martial law has been instituted 64 -- 64 times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, the secretary of the Army and Army chief of staff just issued a joint statement, so they felt compelled to respond to this. It says, quote, "There is no role for the U.S. Military in determining the outcome of an American election." What is your reaction to what Flynn said?

CROW: Well, let's just be real about this. Michael Flynn is a disgraced felon. Regardless of the president's abuse of power by pardoning him, he was convicted or pled to lying to the FBI, so he has no credibility in this debate.

And I think the other thing, if we're talking about real talk right here, is I think we just have to admit the fact that the president has senior folks around him that do not believe in democracy. They do not believe in enfranchising people and allowing them to vote and exercising their fundamental democratic rights. And Michael Flynn is one of those people.

So I don't put any stock in what Michael Flynn is saying, and I do think it's good that our military leaders, those who actually believe in our system and are upholding their oaths to defend democracy, are correcting the record.

KEILAR: Congressman Crow, thank you so much for being with us.

CROW: Thank you.

KEILAR: Next, the Supreme Court hands a narrow win to President Trump in his efforts to keep undocumented immigrants out of the Census count, but it may not be a done deal yet.

[14:22:46]

Plus, a heartbreaking story out of Wisconsin where eight retired nuns all died from COVID within a week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The Supreme Court has thrown out a challenge to President Trump's bid to exclude undocumented immigrants from the U.S. Census, and this could affect the balance of political power in Congress for the next decade. CNN's Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue joins us now to talk about this. I mean, just explain to us what happened today, Ariane.

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Right, Brianna, well, this case was about Trump's attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted for congressional seats when those are divvied up next year.

And a coalition of states and the ACLU immediately challenged this, and said it was unconstitutional. And the reason it's a big deal is because it's about how many seats these states could get. And on top of that, it's about billions of dollars of federal funding.

So what the court said today is, we're going to dismiss this challenge because the Trump administration hasn't specifically said how many people or which people it's going to exclude, and the court said come back -- if you want to -- when those numbers come out, but right now we don't have a case or controversy.

But what's key here is that the liberals on the bench, they dissented. And Justice Breyer, he wrote for them and he said that the court should have thrown out the policy altogether right now. This is what he said.

"The plain meaning of the governing statutes, decades of historical practice, and uniform interpretations from all three branches of government demonstrate that aliens without lawful status cannot be excluded from the decennial census solely on account of that status." And he went on to say, "The government's effort to remove them from the apportionment base is unlawful, and I believe this court should say so."

So, Brianna, what happened today was a narrow victory for Trump because it gets rid of this particular challenge, but as soon as he comes out with these new numbers, these challenges can always come right back up to the Supreme Court and the whole case will be alive again.

KEILAR: All right, we'll be watching for that, Ariane, thank you, live for us from Washington.

The Supreme Court ruling was just one event in a week that has been tragic, hopeful and historic all at the same time, with monumental events filling each hour of every day.

The biggest headlines this week? The U.S. had its deadliest day of the pandemic, and each day delivered new record highs in hospitalizations from the coronavirus. The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was authorized for emergency use, and it was delivered for the first round of doses to health care workers around the country.

[14:30:08]