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Trump Signals He May Veto Newly Passed COVID Relief Bill; U.S. Reports 3,401 Deaths, Second Deadliest Day Of Pandemic. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 23, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:02]

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They are inside other animals, possibly even plant species. And it's very often the cross-transmission of these viruses that cause the problem. They mutate inside other animals before they get to us.

The whole they're making there is that the scientists are saying not if but when when it comes to a new contagion.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Sam, thank you very much.

And thank you all so much for joining me. I'm Kate Bolduan. Bianna Golodryga is picking up our coverage now.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Hello, I'm Bianna Golodryga in for Brianna Keilar. I want to welcome viewers here in the United States and around the world.

We start with President Trump, once again, upending the legislative process, as we see his brand of chaos escalate in the final days of his presidency. Among his targets for destruction is the newly passed COVID relief bill.

In a recorded message, the president attacked a deal he was expected to sign. Now that signing is in doubt after a diatribe of falsehoods aimed at a bill intended to help Americans dealing with the pandemic that the president largely ignores. The president declaring that he wants higher direct payments to the American people, payments that were pared down by his own White House negotiators after facing resistance from his own party leadership.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple.

Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package and maybe that administration will be me.

(END VIDEO CLIP) GOLODRYGA: That little nugget at the end showing that he is still not ready to accept the reality that Joe Biden will be president on January 20th.

We also still don't know what's going to happen with the National Defense Authorization Act. The president is expected to veto the bill or just not sign it at all. That sets up a new battle with Congress and members of his own party who will likely override the veto.

The president also rolled out another round of pardons, as he heads out the door. Here are the big names, George Papadopoulos and Alex van der Zwann, who both lied to federal investigators in the Mueller probe. Then there are the convicted Republican Congressmen. Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter were the first House members to back then- candidate Trump. And they pleaded guilty, respectively, in other to insider trading and illegal use of campaign funds.

And then there are the four Blackwater guards who were convicted for their roles in the massacre of unarmed Iraqis that included women and children in 2007. Blackwater was run at the time by Erik Prince, a key Trump supporter and brother of Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos.

But let's go back to the president's threat to torpedo the $900 billion COVID relief bill. That taped and tweeted message from the president was a surprise to many of his own aides.

CNN's John Harwood is at the White House. And, John, it appears that this video caught even the president's closest advisers off-guard with only Chief of Staff Mark Meadows knowing about it.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Bianna. And the president is choking, psychologically, on his defeat to such an extent that he's just thrashing around, all normal processes of government have been broken down in this White House.

You had a case where the White House was advising staffers that -- about their departure from the White House on January the 19th, because, of course, they're all going to be replaced by Biden aides. And once the president recognized that that story was out there, it was another wound to his psyche and his ego. So, they then put out another subsequent and saying, oh, disregard memo we've sent out, stand by for further instructions.

We know the president is not seriously trying to improve the legislation because he could have done that a long time ago. He's checked out from efforts to help the American people. What we don't know if he is simply ranting and trying to get attention and making himself look good at others' expense, or whether he's actually trying to take this legislation down. He could veto it. There's something called a pocket veto, which he could exercise on his way out of office, depending on when the bill gets to him. We don't know if he actually intends to do that or if this is a one-off.

We do know that the case that he made in that video that he released last night was completely dishonest because he picked out a bunch of elements from an overall spending bill that the COVID relief bill is attached to and pretended that people seeking COVID relief have shoved all of this foreign aid into the COVID relief bill. Of course, that's false.

And, in fact, many of the items that he was reading, as you can see from the graphic, I think that they're putting up, as I'm talking, many of the elements this he focused on were almost precisely the same things that he had requested in his own budget. Whether he realizes what's in his budget or not, we don't know.

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But this is not a serious president by any stretch and the question is, is it a brief rant or is he going to try to really break this bill and hurt the American people, hurt the Republican Party?

GOLODRYGA: Yes, there's a lot he seems to know, also that the $600 stimulus check idea came from his own treasury secretary. That was quite a bizarre video from the president.

But I also want to ask you about Rudy Giuliani. The president's personal attorney has just been told to preserve all records pertaining to Dominion Voting Systems as the company appears to pursue a defamation lawsuit over the false claims of election fraud. This order also extends to the White House Counsel, we hear, yes?

HARWOOD: This is fascinating, Bianna. Trump and his legal team have been doing a tremendous amount of both lunatic rambling in public and straight-up lying. It is one thing when the consequence for that lying is simply that you're deluding your followers and extracting money from them through fundraising appeals, which is what the president has been doing. It's another thing when that might cost you money, because you're going to get hit with a big defamation suit.

We've seen from right-wing media that was spreading a lot of this crazy talk about voting system operations. They have been reading as if they were hostage videos, statements disavowing many of the things that were said on their air. They know that they've been busted for lying.

Now, the same lawyers who extracted those reversals from right-wing media are going to the White House and to the Trump campaign and saying, you're next. And the question is, how serious a threat is that? We don't know, but it is highly likely that, in fact, the Trump campaign and the White House Counsel is preserving those documents because they have got a lot of trouble on their hands.

GOLODRYGA: A lot of legal trouble ahead, indeed. John Harwood, always great to see you. If I don't see you tomorrow, have a happy holiday. Thank you.

HARWOOD: You too, Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: Thanks.

Well, the Trump turmoil is playing out inside the halls of the Capitol, where senators and House members on both sides are wondering what's next. Democrats, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, want to capitalize on the president's push for larger payments to Americans, which they wanted from the start.

Let me bring in CNN Congressional Correspondent Phil Mattingly. Phil, great to see you. We know that Democrats are seizing on this call for larger stimulus checks, with Nancy Pelosi tweeting last night, let's do it. I would imagine that she knows that that's not very likely.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's unlikely because of the way that Democrats are going to try and do this without going into House floor procedure, Bianna, I'm not going to do that to you.

But, basically, what Democrats are going to do is they're going to put up the opportunity for $2,000 checks, a bill for $2,000 checks, as the president has requested, and trying to do by unanimous consent. That means any member of the 535 members of the house can object and the expectation is a Republican will object to that.

Still, the speaker putting out a tweet, urging the president to talk to Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, to talk to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and try and get them on board with this idea. As you noted, Democrats in their package, initial stimulus package that passed in May, had stimulus checks at a higher level, particularly on the dependent side of things. They would be all for this.

I think the reality though when you kind of look through what's actually happening, this bill is passed. It is not just a COVID relief bill, it is also a government funding bill, funding the government through the end of the fiscal year. So we are now staring at the reality of two crucial federal unemployment programs expire to on December 26th, about 12 to 13 million rely on this program, also a potential government shutdown if just a couple of days.

And I think the most interesting element here and perhaps the most unsettling element is all of my sources in the Capitol, particularly Republicans who are in regular contact with the White House, have no idea what's going to happen. They did not expect this to come. John kind of laid this out.

There's a major vote in favor of this from both sides, including the House and the Senate, and the president deciding to do this has really taken everybody aback, and nobody really knows how this ends. And that's obviously not a great place to be in when you look at the stakes of what is actually in this legislation and what it's for.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, and a big headache for Republicans, but huge despair for millions of Americans that are desperate to get those relief checks.

Phil Mattingly, thank you so much, happy holidays to you, as well.

Let me bring in Ryan Lizza, Chief Washington Correspondent for Politico. Ryan, thanks so much for coming on. So, the president surprising his own aides with his Twitter video on the COVID relief bill. He has been completely removed from this process for months. So why are we seeing him come in like a bull in a China shop now?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That is a great question. If any of us had the real answer to that, I think we would unlock a lot of the mysteries of President Trump.

[13:10:00]

You know, as John and Phil explained, he was personally disengaged from the process of this legislation welcome even though it was guided by his budget office and budget requests, and it was personally negotiated in many respects by his treasury secretary, as well as his closest Republican allies on the Hill.

So it's sort of, you know, one final example of Trump acting not like a member of a -- leading his administration and leading his team of negotiators in the executive branch, in the Republican Party, but just an independent, political actor who speaks and tweets and makes political arguments based on whatever is on his mind at that moment without thinking of the other, you know, major considerations and players in his party.

But tomorrow, he may retract everything and sign the bill, right? I mean, I don't know how seriously we should take him, you know, going before a camera and saying something like this because, often, he changes his mind a second later.

GOLODRYGA: It is unbelievable to even hear you say, how seriously should we take it, he's only the president of the United States. But, obviously, I know what you mean. He's been doing this for four years, picking fights and throwing his own advisers under the bus, picking fights with Republicans, top Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, who I think typically wouldn't care, but he's got to be worried about what impact this has on the upcoming Georgia elections as well, right?

LIZZA: Absolutely. The Republicans are getting nervous about those two races. They're very close. And, you know, I think the Republican candidates down there want to be able to say, especially to swing voters, who are down on Trump, but might return to the Republican Party in the post-Trump era, they want to be able to say, look, yes, Republicans are getting stuff done. And, you know, these $600 checks are a good example of that.

You know, Trump is just on his own being pushed by a lot of right-wing actors and people who are telling him what he wants to hear. That's the universe of people he's listening to right now. He's really sort of out there isolated in a way that, you know, he wasn't during other stretches of his presidency, when he was a little bit more in sync with McConnell and other Republican leaders and wanted accomplishments to brag about.

So, look, is he going to veto this or pocket veto this and let this die and cause chaos this weekend during the holidays? I mean, talk about ending his presidency with the disaster of his own making. I just can't believe once he understands the consequences of not signing this legislation that even he would go forward with this. But, Bianna, you know, making predictions about irrational things that Trump does is not always that wise.

GOLODRYGA: We do know we can predict a crazy 29, 28 days ahead, right, if this is any indication. Ryan Lizza, thank you so much.

LIZZA: It's just getting started, yes.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Well, happy holidays to you as well.

LIZZA: You too.

GOLODRYGA: Well, as the U.S. continues to see record numbers of deaths from the coronavirus, millions more doses of the vaccine are on the way. So, does that mean you'll be able to get your shot any sooner?

Plus, a warning from the frontlines, California hospitals say they are overwhelmed and out of ICU bed in some places.

And one military colonel says Trump's pardoning of those Blackwater guards increases the risks to service members abroad.

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GOLODRYGA: The United States is now averaging more deaths a day from coronavirus than ever before. More than 2,700 lives lost on average. Tuesday was the second deadliest on record with more than 3,400 deaths. We are averaging nearly 215,000 cases each day for the last week.

The top health officials and the president-elect himself warned that the worst is yet to come, as millions of Americans are traveling to be with family for Christmas. And for any American traveling to or from the U.K., there is still no federal restrictions, even though a more contagious variant of the virus detected there has led several dozen nations to outright ban U.K. travel.

Genetics experts believe the variant is already in the U.S., although no case has been detected yet. In fact, this variant has exposed the weak surveillance system in the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: This has been a concern of mine for several months, that we don't have the kind of, really, rigorous surveillance system that would help us right now to find out what are the new variants that are circulating in the United States.

The United Kingdom has a much more vigorous surveillance system. That's how they found out about this thing happening. Ours is going to get beefed up now. And we will be able to determine this.

I would agree though it's unlikely that this mutant is not already here given that it was first detected in the U.K. back in September and there's been a lot of people going back and forth. (END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: But today, we are also learning that more help is on the way. The Trump administration has just purchased another 100 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine. At this point, roughly 4.6 million doses have been delivered and more than 600,000 administered.

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Joining me now is CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth, thanks so much for coming on.

When will the U.S. receive these additional doses?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, the way that it's looking is that it will be some time between now and July. That's sort of the deal that's there. And so it is possible that some of these doses may not be administered until the spring or into the summer.

So let's take a look at what Alex Azar said earlier today. He said, this new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants to, who wants it by June of 2021.

So what he's saying essentially there is that we think, at this point, that we can vaccinate everyone who wants to be vaccinated by June of next year. That means that some people will have to be patient. If you want it now and you're not in a high-risk group, you may have to wait a bit. You certainly will have to wait, we've been told, probably until the spring. Bianna?

GOLODRYGA: Still great to hear this news that additional purchases were made though. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

GOLODRYGA: In California, the leader to have one health system says its hospitals are, quote, breaking records that we don't want to be breaking, with COVID admissions, ventilator use, COVID patients and deaths all at numbers never seen before. The southern part of the state still has no ICU beds left.

CNN Correspondent Dan Simon joins me now from a hospital in San Francisco. And, Dan, the situation sounds so desperate. Hospital leaders are banding together really to make a plea to the public.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Bianna. Well, first of all, California about to hit 2 million cases. That could come as early as today. Now, what's really striking about all of this is that it took, I don't know, about a year to get the first million and then, of course, just six weeks to get to the second million, so here we are.

And Governor Newsom is saying that with all of these trends that really folks should continue to stay at home. And we've seen a positivity rate of 63 -- excuse me, a hospitalization rate increasing 63 percent over the past couple of weeks.

Now, here in San Francisco, it's not quite as bad, yet it still remains stark. This is what the mayor had to say yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR LONDON BREED (D), SAN FRANCISCO, CA: We know that if we can just get through these holidays and avoid any significant surges, we have an opportunity to get this virus under control, so that next year we have an opportunity to celebrate with our loved ones, which is so important, I know, to so many people. But we are still in a very dangerous place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: Well, officials here and elsewhere are continuing to remind folks to avoid any unnecessary travel, avoid holiday gatherings. That said, they are preparing for a post-holiday surge, much like what we saw after Thanksgiving, Bianna.

And in Los Angeles, we're continuing to see incredible amount of cases. 1 out of 64 people is said to have the virus and actively spreading it. Bianna?

GOLODRYGA: Yes, that expected surge, obviously why the president-elect said that our darkest days are still ahead of us. Dan Simon, thank you. We appreciate it.

So let's unpack all of this. Joining me now is internist and E.R Dr. Amesh Adalja, who is also a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Doctor, thanks so much for coming on.

We have seen surges after past holidays, but never when the nation is averaging almost 215,000 new infections a day. What do you forecast is going to happen, especially when we're seeing millions traveling for the Christmas holiday?

DR. AMESH ADALJA, INTERNIST AND E.R. PHYSICIAN: Well, it's inevitable that we're going to see an acceleration in cases. This virus thrives on social interaction. People are going to be at gatherings where they're going to let their guards down. They're going to be mixing different households, and we're going to see more cases accelerate.

And the bad thing about this is that they're occurring when we're already in the midst of the biggest surge that we've had with hospitals at record numbers of inpatients with COVID-19. And that capacity strain that's going on is not sustainable. Hospitals are looking day-to-day to see what we can do to free up capacity and we can't do this forever.

GOLODRYGA: I keep thinking about these poor doctors and nurses that are doing this for the first or second, now they're doing for the third time in one year alone.

But researchers believe there are probably hundreds of people in the U.S. who have the new coronavirus variant of this coronavirus that's more infectious. Do you agree with that assessment?

ADALJA: I do think that it's likely that this strain has made its way to the United States probably undetected because we don't do that much sequencing. And it really argues that these travel bans that we are hearing about in Europe are not going to be effective just as they weren't effective early on in the spring when they were initiated on China. This is something that is going to spread and it is probably here.

And it doesn't -- the important point is that it doesn't change what we have to do. It's still the same, wearing of face coverings, washing your hands, trying to avoid crowded and congregated places and just being mindful of your distancing, doing things outdoors as much as you can.

[13:25:05]

That's what we do for this strain or any other strain of coronavirus. We've got to continue doing this.

And it looks as if the vaccine are going to be okay for this strain, but we may have to deal with an increased intensity of transmission.

GOLODRYGA: So do you think, at this point, it's not worth it to restrict travel from the U.K., like more than 30 other nations have done?

ADALJA: I don't think it's worth it. I'm not an big fan of travel bans, in general when it comes to controlling infectious diseases. I do think it's prudent though to do testing of individuals as they come into the United States from the United Kingdom that we're already hearing about Delta and Virgin Airlines and British Airways. Doing that, I think, makes sense but I wouldn't think an outright travel ban is justified based on this.

GOLODRYGA: Let me ask you about a startling headline I came across the other day. I haven't seen much follow-up on it. And that is that this new strain may make children as equally susceptible as adults to the virus. Have you heard that as well and what more do we know about it?

ADALJA: We don't know a lot about it. We know that this strain, one of the mutations, allows it to bind more aggressively to the receptor on our cells. And there's been some speculation that children have less of those receptors. So if this is more efficient in binding at them, maybe it will be able to infect children more efficiently than it has in the past.

Again, this is a laboratory science and it takes some time to translate that to what happens in the real world. And we've seen mutations occur all the time. Remember, viruses like this, like coronaviruses that have RNA genetic material, that's what they do, they mutate a lot. And most mutations don't do anything. I think we're going to really have to wait some time for the science to catch up and understand exactly what all of these mutations mean.

But that is one thing that people are looking at, is if this makes it more likely that children can get infected with this strain versus other strains. And I think that will be an important question to answer as we think about the role of children and the epidemiology of this virus.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, that was the one silver lining of this virus thus far, right, was that children didn't seem to have the same effect that adults did from it.

Finally, let me ask you about the vaccine, and there are concerns, though most doctors we've spoken to believe that the vaccine will still be effective with this new variant. Do you agree with you.

ADALJA: I do agree with it. It's important to remember that a vaccine doesn't just create one type of antibody in your immune. System it actually creates a whole host of antibodies and it's very hard for a virus to escape all of those, especially when it's happening so fast, meaning that this mutation is rather new. It's not something that's been evolving for some time.

And you also have to remember that vaccines stimulate other parts of your immune system, things called T-cells, which are important for immunity as well. So I do think and looking at the preliminary data that's coming out, this does appear to be a variant that our vaccines will be robust against.

So I don't think there's any worry at this point. Moderna, Pfizer, they're doing tests to make sure, but everything that we're seeing so far is really reassuring that these vaccines are going to be able to take this strain out just like they take out the other -- the prior, older strains.

GOLODRYGA: Well that sure is welcome news. Dr. Adalja, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

ADALJA: Thanks for having me.

GOLODRYGA: Up next, President Trump's pardon of four men convicted of a massacre in Iraq in 2007 leads to outrage among the surviving victims. And my next guest, a retired Air Force colonel who served in Iraq, calls it a disgrace.

Plus, what happens next if the president vetoes the defense spending bill? His deadline is today.

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