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Trump Signals he may Veto Newly Passed COVID Relief Bill; Interview with Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA); Trump Pardons Former Blackwater Guards Involved in Deadly Iraqi Civilian Shooting. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired December 23, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:15]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us.

This morning, this country is in crisis. Just two days before Christmas, because the president is threatening to blow up everything that was settled, unemployment benefits for millions of Americans now run out in three days. The government shuts down in five days. And Congress has already left Washington, all with a deadly pandemic raging on.

But the president just couldn't let things actually function the way they're supposed to, threatening last night in a bizarre video that he wants a different COVID relief bill, not the one that's been negotiated by his own Treasury secretary and both parties for literally months. He blindsided lawmakers and even his own staff demanding changes to the $900 billion deal calling it, a quote, "disgrace." And leaving the desperately needed help for millions of Americans suffering financially from the pandemic in limbo.

Is that what he wants? What is the game that he's actually playing here? President Trump also announced a flood of pardons for former aides and allies, including some who pleaded guilty during the Mueller investigation. Some corrupt former Republican members of Congress and some military contractors involved in a deadly shooting of Iraqi citizens in 2007. So, what has been clear for four years now of President Trump is he does nothing quietly and he's definitely leaving the White House kicking and screaming.

Let's go to the White House. Let's get the very latest as things have changed minute by minute. John Harwood is joining us now. John, the president's demand blindsided a lot of people on the Hill and at the White House. If he eventually vetoes it, they could override it. Is that the level of humiliation that Trump wants right now?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, Donald Trump doesn't know what he wants and the question that you posed in the intro was the accurate one. What exactly is the game that he's playing here? The president is having difficulty handling his defeat to Joe Biden. We know the president is not serious about governing or actually obtaining a solution for the American people. He's moment to moment gratifying his psyche, his ego, trying to persuade his supporters to send him more money, trying to somehow get attention that's been draining away to Joe Biden. He's only got 28 days or so left in his presidency.

And the question is, is he simply throwing this tantrum about the bill so he's telling the American people, look at me, look, I'm still here, look what I can do, or is he actually trying to destroy this bill on his way out of office? It's possible that he could do that. The votes were there in the Congress initially to override a veto but it's a different matter once that veto has been cast if he tries to put pressure on those Republicans who have been so subservient and afraid of him.

So, we just don't know what he's going to do. I think everybody was blindsided, including his own staff, by what he did. And he reacts impulsively moment to moment. We will see what he does the rest of the day today if in fact he gets on that plane and goes down to Mar-a- Lago. Maybe if he goes on vacation for a few days, the fever will cool with respect to this bill, but we don't know the answer yet.

BOLDUAN: Don't even know if he's going yet. President Trump also is lashing out at the number two Republican in the Senate, Senator John Thune, over the president's continued futile quest to overthrow the election. What is going on there?

HARWOOD: What's going on, Kate, is the president is nurturing this delusion that he can still somehow overturn the results of the election because it is so injurious to his ego to be seen as a loser. It's so injurious to his reputation.

So, he's surrounded himself with these kooky advisers who keep persuading him, even though cases have been tossed out of court. He always has some other avenue to try to overturn the election.

The avenue that he settled on now because it's the only one available to him is January 6th, when Congress needs to certify the results of the Electoral College. If you get a House member and a senator to object to those results, you can force a debate and a vote in the Congress.

There are more than enough House Republicans who are willing to play along with the president and do this. Senate Republicans are trying to avoid it, and two people who have said out loud that it's not going to work and we don't want to do that are Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, and John Thune, a member of the Republican leadership. John Thune said that that idea would go down like a shot dog. Now the president's attacking both of those men.

BOLDUAN: In this wave of pardons last night, crooked politicians, people who lied to federal investigators, military contractors involved in killing Iraqi civilians. What's the common thread here, John? [11:05:08]

HARWOOD: Common thread is that Donald Trump is always trying to help himself. He's completely transactional. What is in it for me personally, not what's in it for the American people?

So, he pardons these corrupt Republican House members who were early supporters of his. They helped me. I'm going to help them. This comes at a time when he's trying to get -- rally the Republican base to somehow help him stay in office.

Secondly, he pardoned four Blackwater guards who in 2007 murdered a bunch of people in Iraq, including children. And their boss at the time was Erik Prince, who is the brother of his education secretary.

And finally, he tried to wipe out two convictions in the Mueller probe related to Russia. That Russia probe was targeting him. He's trying politically and legally to avoid accountability. There may be more pardons along that line, including Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman, and perhaps even Donald Trump himself. Kate?

BOLDUAN: John, thank you.

Joining me right now is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Democratic Congressman Adam Smith. Congressman, thank you for coming. And Mr. Chairman, your reaction just for us to the president demanding changes to the COVID relief bill now.

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): I mean, the most important thing about this is the American people -- they desperately need help. What is contained in this bill is going to get them help. Unemployment, direct checks, help for businesses, help to distribute the vaccine, help for public health.

So, the president's decision is doing incredible harm to desperate people. I mean it's just that simple. Every day that he waits to sign this, much less if he decides not to sign it at all, is just devastating to an American country. There are people that are suffering horribly right now because of the economic impacts of this pandemic.

So, the impact on the people is number one. And then there's all kinds of issues on what the president is doing on his way out of the White House here.

BOLDUAN: Do you have a guess on that? Do you have a guess on what the motivation is? I mean if he is blindsiding you guys on the Hill is nothing new from him, but he blindsided a lot of his staff with this demand last night.

SMITH: This isn't complicated and one thing I disagree with is the idea that somehow, we don't know what Donald Trump wants. What he wants is absolute power. What he wants is he wants to be put back in the White House for four years and he wants the freedom to exercise that power to advance his own personal interests. That's what he wants. (CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: How is that - how was what he did last night going to get him that?

SMITH: Well, here's the thing, he cannot have what he wants. He's literally, for anyone who has ever raised a child, he's the 2-year-old that can't get what he wants, so he's just going to scream and lash out in bizarre different directions.

BOLDUAN: Can I play something out for you really quick just on this, because I have got the other moments of chaos that he created as well. If he would veto this COVID bill, and you all did not have the numbers to override it. We don't know that. You very well could have the numbers to override the veto. But if you didn't, couldn't you all just pick this exact bill right back up, pass it in January once Trump is gone and then Joe Biden would get the credit?

SMITH: Absolutely, we can do it January 20th. Now that's a month of really painful suffering, first of all. And second of all, this is a very complicated piece of legislation. As you know, I mean the defense bill, the bill that I've worked on under the Armed Services Committee, is also currently under a veto threat.

So, I have negotiated things like this. And the risk come January 20th as you have a different Congress, you have different members of the House, different members of the Senate. The majority is depending on what happens in Georgia, will not change but you have different members of Congress. Will those different members of Congress agree to every single thing that was just agreed to? There's a little bit of --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Good point.

SMITH: I tend to think it would but there's a risk.

BOLDUAN: In this moment are you confident that the government will not shut down and benefits for millions of Americans will not expire days after Christmas?

SMITH: Look, I'm not confident of anything as long as Donald Trump is president. It is impossible to overstate the degree to which he's blown up any sense of common purpose, any commonsense approach. You cannot be confident of anything with Donald Trump as president because he's the president. Whatever we do, he's got to sign it. Or we have to override it. It gets chaotic because of his approach.

BOLDUAN: He also just -- all of the pardons, he just pardoned three former members of Congress, two people charged in connection with the Russia investigation and four former members of the Blackwater security firm that were charged with murdering Iraqi civilians. One of them was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. What is your reaction to that wave of pardons last night?

SMITH: I'm appalled. Just because the president does - you know does some things today that are appalling doesn't mean we shouldn't identify it for what it is. This is a reprehensible decision that basically throws the rule of law out the window on a presidential whim.

[11:10:01]

This is horrific, to pardon people, you know corrupt politicians, corrupt friends of his, people who have committed cold-blooded murder, to tell the world that this is the American legal system now because Trump is president. It's devastating to the rule of law and to any sense of order.

BOLDUAN: You mentioned the annual defense spending bill, setting spending priorities for the military on annual basis. The president is facing a deadline with this today. If he has threatened to veto it, is he going to do it? Do you think it is going to happen?

SMITH: Just to be clear, it's the defense authorizing bill.

BOLDUAN: Authorizing, yes.

SMITH: The defense spending bill was contained in the package that we passed --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: I apologize, I misspoke.

SMITH: -- but he vetoed (ph) that. Look, I don't know. I mean, he's threatening to veto this over the Section 230 issue that has nothing to do with the defense bill. And there are a lot of very good things in the defense bill, including support for our troops.

You know the president has gotten to veto it because he wants to repeal Section 230 on social media issue.

Will he carry that out tonight? He has got until midnight. I don't know.

I have worked very closely with Senator Inhofe, who as you know is a close ally of the president. Senator Inhofe is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He doesn't know. So, we will see as the day unfolds.

BOLDUAN: If he does veto, you assume you have the numbers to override it, but what message does it send if the president vetoes it?

SMITH: I mean - you know it just -- I don't know what message he would be trying to send at that point. Basically, he's trying -- he took the defense bill hostage to try to get this other thing passed but he's not going to get the other thing passed. It's not going to happen. So, forgive me but he's basically going to shoot the hostage if he needs those to no purpose.

We have the votes to override. In the House and Senate, we have the votes and crucially, we also have the time. That's a complicated thing as we get ready to end this particular Congress. But we'll override on the 28th, Senate will override on the 29th and it will become law. Whether or not he vetoes it will not change that.

BOLDUAN: In these final days, Barbara Starr has had some really strong reporting out of the Pentagon just the level of anxiety amongst the top levels over what the president could do in these final days. I'm curious from your position, have you heard this? Are you hearing this level of anxiety that they're afraid quite frankly of what the president could do?

SMITH: Absolutely. And I'm in very close contact with the leadership over at the Pentagon both the civilian and the military. But the president has inserted two to about four people into the Pentagon who are over there to do his personal bidding. And you know we've learned throughout this process that there is very little that the president won't do to try to advance his personal interests.

Now, I will reassure the American people to say that the leadership, that the uniformed as well as civilian leadership that remains over there, that are not just sycophants to the president, I believe can shut down these efforts and will protect the Pentagon and protect our country. But it's not something they're taking for granted.

BOLDUAN: Mr. Chairman, thank you for your time. I don't envy your job the next couple of days. Thank you.

SMITH: Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

BOLDUAN: Still ahead for us, the Trump administration reaches a deal to buy millions more doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Does that mean more Americans are going to be getting the shots sooner?

And we are awaiting remarks from President-elect Biden. He is set to unveil his latest cabinet pick. But will he also address the chaos that President Trump is creating over this COVID relief bill? We're standing by.

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[11:18:00]

BOLDUAN: At any moment we will be hearing from President-elect Joe Biden. He's expected to announce his pick for Education secretary. You can see a live shot there from Wilmington, Delaware. We will bring you those remarks when they begin.

But first, some good news on the vaccine front this morning after one of the deadliest days yet in the pandemic. 3,401 Americans were reported dead from COVID, Tuesday. Making yesterday the second highest death toll since the pandemic began. But we've just also learned that the Trump administration will be purchasing an additional 100 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer.

Let's bring in CNN's Elizabeth Cohen. She's got all of these details that have been coming in. Elizabeth, do we know when those additional doses will be distributed and ready to be administered? ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, some of them won't likely be distributed until the spring or even early summer. These will not be coming out immediately and all at once. Let's take a look at a statement that Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar put out earlier this morning.

He said, "This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June of 2021."

So, you will notice two things here, one, he's saying, hey, we think we're going to have enough that if you want it, you can have it, but not immediately, by June of 2021. So, people who are low risk, who are not elderly, who don't have underlying immune or medical issues, who are not an essential worker, we will likely be waiting until the spring or even the early summer. Kate?

BOLDUAN: I want to ask you also what more you're learning about the new COVID strain that is obviously so prevalent in the United Kingdom? Some researchers are thinking it could already be in the United States.

COHEN: Right that it could already be in the U.S., Kate, and possibly in great numbers. Researchers are telling that maybe hundreds of Americans or possibly even more already have the strain. Think about the amount of travel between London and the U.S.

[11:20:00]

It's a lot of people and that strain showed up, we think, in the UK at this point on September 20th. Think about how much travel there's been since then. Interestingly, the surveillance system in the U.S., there's a system that looks for mutations of viruses, especially this virus, that hasn't found it yet. But they think it's because that surveillance system isn't very good and needs to be improved. So, let's take a look at some numbers that illustrate that point.

So, there have been more than 7 million new cases of COVID-19 since the middle of November. That's when we think it probably would have started arriving and kind of spreading in the U.S. Only 292 of those have been genetically sequenced. You can't find a mutation if you don't do a genetic sequence. So, that's a tiny, tiny fraction that have actually been genetically sequenced.

Compare this to what they do in the UK, take the same time periods since November 15th. In the U.S., 292 people have had that virus - their virus genetically sequenced. In the UK, 9,230 have had genetic sequencing. That's a big difference. The CDC is trying to improve their surveillance system. They think they will have a new system set up and in place in January. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Elizabeth, thanks so much for that.

So, while the promise of even more vaccine supply is great news, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the incoming director of the CDC, she's painting a dark picture of what the next month at least is going to look like. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, INCOMING CDC DIRECTOR: I think we all need to acknowledge that on January 21st, things are going to be bad. It's going to be dark. Right now, we're already in some dark times. I do think that we're going to have more deaths, more surge after the Christmas and New Year's holidays and all of those are going to manifest you know around the end of January.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Set the calendar. And with me now is Dr. Michael Mina, he's with the Department of Immunology and Infectious Disease at Harvard. It's good to see you again, Doctor. What do you think of the picture that Dr. Walensky is painting here for the coming month?

DR. MICHAEL MINA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Well, I would say that Dr. Walensky is being very practical and pragmatic about this. It's unlikely to get better and quite likely to get - to continue getting worse between now and the time the new administration enters into office.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Walensky also weighed in on the travel restrictions that dozens of other countries are putting in place with the United Kingdom over this new COVID strain. Let me play for you what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALENSKY: We need to be limiting our mobility period. And whether we think about it from the UK, from European countries, from South Africa, we need to be limiting our mobility. One of those strategies might be to ban travel but other strategies might be to have quarantines upon arrival, to promote testing, to have testing before you arrive, to have testing upon your arrival or even several days after your arrival or some combination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Dr. Mina, what do you think of that?

MINA: I think this is really getting at these new variants that are out there. I think we can be pretty sure that these are already circulating in the United States. But the most we can stop travel, the better. And this isn't just from other countries, but this is really, if we can stop people from spreading the virus, by traveling especially during this holiday, this holiday season, I think that would put us in a much better place come January than where we will otherwise be.

BOLDUAN: And health officials that continue to say there's no reason to think the coronavirus vaccines that are currently available will not work against the new strain. But there are some scientists who are questioning whether it will work as well as it has against the previous strains. Is the efficacy of these vaccines, if it would drop below the 95 percent rate of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine as we've known it, what does that mean? MINA: Well, look, it means that it's going to take a longer amount of time to get to herd immunity. It's going to be more difficult to really stop this virus from spreading. I think what we are seeing in terms of this virus' ability to mutate around immunity so far is really should be considered foreshadowing of potentially very bad outcomes in the future. And we should be taking and putting in place contingency plans today to account for the what ifs.

What if this virus actually does escape than the vaccine later on? We don't have evidence it has yet, but it very well may. And the consequences of that are massive, economic stability of the globe is really on the line. So, we should be preparing for that. Regardless if the risk is quite low.

BOLDUAN: And let me get your perspective on what Elizabeth Cohen was just reporting about kind of the lack of genetic sequencing that has been going on here in the United States compared to the UK. Some 7 million cases and you're looking at 292 cases have been -- there have been genetic sequencing of 292 cases.

[11:25:03]

That's obviously well above the pay grade of many of us to understand how significant that is, but Dr. Francis Collins of the NIH said this morning that he thinks that is a real problem. Can you give me your thought on that?

MINA: Absolutely, genetic sequencing and monitoring with molecular epidemiology as well as case counts is absolutely crucial. So that we know what's happening. Right now, we continue to fly blind. I have been trying to just get the most basic type of testing out to the country and we have failed on that.

So, of course, we've also been failing spectacularly really to ramp up sequencing so that we can monitor, we can keep abreast with everything that's happening with this virus. We as the wealthiest country in the world and the most resourced are really not doing our part to be able to monitor this virus.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Mina, thank you so much. I really appreciate it always.

Coming up for us, we're standing by for President-elect Joe Biden. He is set to introduce his pick for Education secretary. Will he also be addressing though how President Trump just up ended the COVID relief bill?

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