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GOP Forced To Decide Whether To Back Trump Or Support Defense And COVID Relief Bills; Trump Doles Out Controversial Pardons To Allies While Holding Up Critical COVID Relief, Defense Bills; CDC: More Than 1 Million Vaccine Doses Administered Across United States; United States Sets New Record For Hospitalizations, Nearing 120,000; House Set To Vote On Expanding Relief Checks To $2,000 Monday. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 24, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

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CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's more than double the 8,000 workers before Thanksgiving.

JONATHAN SMITH, PRESIDENT, NEW YORK METRO AREA POSTAL UNION: I understand the frustration of the American public. We're doing our best we can. Don't confuse a comma for a period, because we will get you your packages.

ALESCI: Cristina Alesci, CNN, New York.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: It is the top of the hour now. Hello everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan. This is a special edition of CNN NEWSROOM for you. It is Christmas Eve for everyone a time for people to come together, although this year doing so virtually. But the president and his own party can't even seem to do that, and Washington can't seem to do virtually anything at the moment.

President Trump is making it crystal clear right now it's him versus everyone. In a desperate attempt to cling to the false reality that the election can be overturned he's wreaking havoc on his own team, angry that Republicans, even his own vice president according to "The New York Times" aren't doing enough to defend him and his fantasy of staying in the White House after January 20th.

He's pitting himself directly against Congressional Republicans upending the COVID relief bill that his administration negotiated with congress. One Republican lawmaker even saying the president is throwing the party under the bus with his last-minute demands. On the same private call that was said with House Republicans "The New York Times" reports Republican Virginia Fox went as far to say, "I don't know we can recover from this."

The president also vetoed a major defense bill that was passed with bipartisan majorities in both chambers of congress. All of this as the president issues another wave of pardons to loyalists, friends and allies. Over two dozen last night another move that isn't sitting well with some Republicans put bluntly by Republican Senator Ben Sasse this wave of pardons is "Rotten to the core."

So, Washington is a mess and Donald Trump, he just left town, leaving the chaos behind him to spend his holiday in Palm Beach and as of now, there is nothing on his schedule today. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is keeping watch down in Florida. He's joining us right now. Jeremy, what are you hearing from the president's team this morning?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, there are always concerns among the president's advisers when he comes down here to his Mar-a-Lago resort. And that is because this is the place where Mar-a-Lago club members, friends, acquaintances, political allies, have their most unfettered access to the president.

And it's often where they are seen stoking the president's worst impulses, some of his most destructive ideas. And keep in mind, where we are right now. We're at a place in time where the president's behavior is already volatile, already erratic. We are seeing him governing by chaos with these threats to veto legislation, actually following through on vetoing legislation just yesterday and issuing this slew of controversial pardons.

So those concerns are certainly more heightened now than they have ever been as the president arrives here at Mar-a-Lago. At the same time, this is also a place where you could see the president being encouraged to pardon more individuals.

You will see, I have no doubt about it, political allies of the presidents and friends of his come to him on the courtyard at Mar-a- Lago and try and talk to him into pardoning some of their own friends as we have seen this is how the process plays out.

The president is not using the pardon office at the Department of Justice. He is relying on the counsel of friends and allies. And so, I think this week as the president speaks with more people, you could see him engage in more of these controversial pardons. One thing is clear, Kate, is that the president is ending his final days much like he has conducted himself throughout his presidency.

You are seeing the chaos really emboldened by the president and you are seeing him at a time where he is being checked by congress with this potential first veto override of his presidency over this national defense bill. Pardons are one thing that congress cannot check, and the president is very aware of that. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Jeremy, it's good to see you. Thank you. Joining me right now is CNN Political Correspondent Abby Phillip for more on this. Abby, what do you think these chaotic final days as Jeremy really well laid out, what do you think they mean for the end of Trump's Presidency?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It seems like President Trump is treating his presidential powers almost like a last supper meal. He's trying to use as much of it as he possibly can, knowing that it's about to run out, that this is going to be his last ability to utilize some of these powers, particularly the pardon power, which he really relishes because, as Jeremy pointed out, it's completely unchecked.

And right now, the White House is hearing from people not just the president's political allies but literally people all over the country. Republicans who might have any sort of ear in the White House who want to have you know, relatively obscure people convicted of all kinds of obscure felonies trying to get in front of the president to get a pardon.

So, it's a little bit of the Wild-Wild-West here in Washington. But I also think you're seeing the president reacting in kind of vengeful way against people, especially in congress who he thinks are not helping him along with his efforts to overturn the election.

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PHILLIP: I think that's what a lot of these vetoes, the veto threats are all about, it is about retribution for those lawmakers who he thinks are not loyal enough.

BOLDUAN: And it's - and he's not just fighting with Republicans in congress now. He's turning on even his most ardent supporters and backers. I mean, let me throw up this tweet that he pushed out re- tweeting pressuring Mike Pence to refuse to accept the electoral results when Pence resides over the joint session of congress in January.

I mean, what is the position that he's putting Pence in right now, I'm curious? And how is this - going to play out?

PHILLIP: It is an impossible position for Mike Pence, as you can imagine because he has the ceremonial role that he's going to play when congress meets on January 6th. And it's really to sort of oversee a kind of pro forma process of kind of acknowledging the electoral votes that have already been cast in the states.

And what the president is asking him to do is basically say, I never received these electoral votes. I don't think that that is something that is actually within Mike Pence's power to do, but it's something that as you can see is swimming around on the internet. It's gotten to the president and you know, reporting is already that President Trump is already viewing Mike Pence as not being loyal enough.

I don't know what Pence's options are. He's already been threading this really narrow needle basically trying to say we're going to count all the votes that are legal, not count the ones that are not illegal. But you haven't heard him kind of repeating some of the more full- throated election fraud allegations and I think that's one of the reasons that President Trump has been so dissatisfied with him.

BOLDUAN: It's going to be fascinating to watch what that looks like on January 6th for Mike Pence. I mean, so on the wave of pardons that we've been looking at that were just announced by the president last night, our colleague Manu Raju actually reminded us this morning that he had spoken to Lindsey Graham about the idea, the concept, of a pardon for Paul Manafort, what it would mean and he asked him this two years ago?

Let me read for you what Lindsey Graham told Manu at the time. He said pardoning Manafort would be seen as a political disaster for the President. There may come a day down the road, after the politics have changed that you'd want to consider an application of him like everybody else, but now would be a disaster. How is all of this sitting with Republicans now?

PHILLIP: Well, I mean, you can hear the silence, Kate. I mean, there has been virtually, with very few exceptions, Ben Sasse, I think you mentioned earlier, calling it really basically corruption but the rest of the Republicans have said almost nothing.

And someone like Lindsey Graham who has spent most of this year backtracking on his past comments, both about President Trump, but also about things like whether he would vote to support a Supreme Court nominee in an election year a couple of weeks before an election.

This is just one more thing that I expect that Lindsey Graham has already backtracked on based on his silence on this situation but there's no question about it. A year ago, two years ago, three years ago, many Republicans were saying that they did not believe that President Trump would go this far, because he knew that it would be a political disaster, that it would be essentially as many lawyers have been saying, an acknowledgment of some kind of obstruction of justice.

Well, now they completely changed their tune, because this is what President Trump does. He pushes everyone to the limits of what is tolerated in the political sphere and this is just one more thing that Republicans are accepting and are moving on from because President Trump is a political power house still in the Republican Party and that doesn't seem to be changing any time soon.

BOLDUAN: Not if he has anything to do about it.

PHILLIP: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Good to see you, Abby. Thank you very much. I want to turn now to the latest on the Coronavirus vaccines. This is an area of good news in the county right now. Millions of doses distributed and now the country just hit a milestone of one million people getting their first shots.

Still, it appears the roll-out is going slower than initially hoped. For that, let me bring in CNN's Elizabeth Cohen who's got this and much more. Elizabeth, what is the very latest that you are hearing about the pace and plan for the vaccine rollout today?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Kate, if we look backwards there has been a million doses, a million shots into arms in the past ten days. That's really a pretty amazing feat; I don't know that that has ever been done in this country. Unfortunately, federal health officials have created the impression with their comments over the past couple of months that there would be 20 million shots in arms by the end of the week. So again, 1 million in the past ten days, getting 19 million in the next week you would have to be Santa on his sleigh. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? No, it's not likely. So, I think that we're really false expectations that were set, a million shots in ten days is really pretty stunning.

BOLDUAN: You also had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Anthony Fauci. What is he telling you?

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COHEN: So, his 80th birthday is today. So, we had an 80th birthday interview yesterday and happy birthday to Dr. Fauci. And so, we talked to him, I talked to him about how he will be spending his birthday and Christmas, because he has been telling people don't travel, don't go to any large gatherings.

So, let's take a listen to what he - hold on one second. Yes, sorry. I wanted to make sure I was saying the right thing here. So, I asked him what he was doing with his family. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I definitely feel sad. I have three daughters, ranging in age from late 20s to early 30s. This is the first holiday season of Christmas and my birthday that I have not spent with my daughters since they were born.

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COHEN: Now, I also talked to Dr. Fauci about his future. Is he going to keep working this hard? I told him it seems like you've been working 24/7. Here is his response.

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DR. FAUCI: Well, not 24/7, but more like 18/7.

COHEN: Do you think you'll ever retire?

DR. FAUCI: Well, I think I have to be realistic and I think that sooner or later I'm going to have to do that. I don't see that right now clearly in my future. The only thing I see ahead is the challenge that we are currently facing.

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COHEN: And now we all know that Dr. Fauci is going to be the Chief Medical Adviser to President Biden when he takes office next month. Kate?

BOLDUAN: That's right. Elizabeth, thank you so much. He is truly a really humble man. Coming up for us, more than 120,000 Americans now in hospitals fighting Coronavirus that is a new record we're going to talk to an ER doctor about what he is seeing in his hospital. And later, President Trump on a collision course with congress after he vetoed that massive defense bill and threw COVID relief into limbo. What will congress do?

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BOLDUAN: Health experts across the country and from the federal government on down to the local level have all warned of a dark winter with the Coronavirus. And a new update to the often sited IHME model re-enforces that fear that influential model out of the University of Washington is now projecting more than 567,000 Americans will have died from Coronavirus by April 1st, that's 5,000 more than they thought just last week.

And it's easy to see how the projections are going up, given what we're seeing in hospitals across the country? The United States set a new record for hospitalizations on Wednesday with nearly 120,000 people needing hospital care. There were also more than 3,300 deaths yesterday, marking the third highest death toll in a single day since the pandemic began. December is on track to become the deadliest month yet.

Joining me right now is Dr. Rob Davidson; he is an Emergency Room Physician in Western Michigan. It's good to see you again, doctor. I see your deep breath. How is it in your hospital right now? What are you hearing from your colleagues across the country?

DR. ROB DAVIDSON, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN IN WEST MICHIGAN: In our hospital we're kind of treading water right now. The rate of increase has slowed up a bit. Our really pre-Thanksgiving we had a significant spike a lot of it tied to a couple of events President Trump held right at the end of the campaign season within about 20, 30 miles of our hospital.

And we're sort of treading water right now, the numbers have stabilized, but we're all bracing for an inevitable spike post- Christmas and post-New Years. And really the people I talked to across the country especially folks in Southern California, you know, the numbers tell a story, but the individual stories are even more meaningful.

I think back to one of the sickest people I have ever seen, had the lowest oxygen exaggeration in a patient not receiving CPR that I've ever seen in 20 some years of practice. And talking to his wife on the phone, asking if he was going to make it and frankly not being able to tell her whether that was the case or not and found out this person died just a few days ago.

And I think the numbers are sort of numbing to people. They're getting used to hearing numbers like 2 or 3,000 a day, but we have to remember these are people that just aren't there on Christmas or New Years and we need to do everything now, so we have more people there next Christmas, next New Year's. BOLDUAN: I think you're spot on. The numbers are so big, and it's been

happening for so long that people are numb to them. I think that's an absolute at this point but the fact that the stories that you hear every day and what your colleagues experience every day in the hospitals, can't also be lost on folks that it is Christmas Eve.

I mean, what it means to have hospitals stretched to this point with families that cannot be together, because they are one of their family members is in hospital care on this holiday. And you guys have gotten, you know, a day off maybe never because of Coronavirus all of that settling in on Christmas Eve. How does that settle on you?

DR. DAVIDSON: Yes, I'm working the Christmas block this year because that's what you do as ER block. Every other year, you worked the Christmas block. But our nurses are getting mandated to work more hours and we have dozens of staff going out positive for COVID every single day.

And so, you know, we hear about these huge numbers and we can build beds and we can put oxygen tanks anywhere in the hospital frankly to take care of patients. But having a staff there to do it, I give it to my nurses, to the paramedics, the people who are caring for these patient's hour upon hour and are getting sicker more quickly than the rest of us in healthcare.

They're the heroes right now to me. So yes, I'm glad that my nurses are lining up now. They're getting their shot at our hospital just starting yesterday and into next week. So, the hope is there, but yes, the struggle is real right now.

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BOLDUAN: On the vaccine front, the numbers again, big numbers, more than 9 million vaccines have been delivered, a million doses administered. Does that number inspire you? Does that number frustrate you when you see kind of the gap in delivery and in getting in shots into arms? Or is it just reality?

DR. DAVIDSON: Well, I think reality and frustration can exist at the same time. I think the reality of a federal government that has shown inability to coordinate a response to this pandemic, I think is truly playing out as we roll out the vaccine. One would have hoped that a lot of these issues would have been ironed out before the vaccine was actually ready to go.

And so, yes, it is hopeful. We have to hold on to that because it's really the only way the rest of us, folks on the front line and otherwise can get through this right now. But we have to ask for more, expect more and hopefully get more in about four weeks' time.

BOLDUAN: I've heard some doctors and healthcare workers with mixed feelings about getting the vaccine, not because they question the vaccine, but a sense that they feel like they might be cutting the line for someone else who might need the shot when they're so - they're not - it's not so widespread yet. What do you say about that? DR. DAVIDSON: I hear that as well. I tweeted about that yesterday and

got a lot of responses mostly from lay people who aren't in healthcare wanting their doctor to get the shot; wanting their nurse to get the shot and I think it is twofold. I do think that we have to be there to take care of the patients as these numbers keep going up and up and up.

But I also think we can be really good messengers for folks to show them, I'm rolling up my sleeve. I trust the technology. I know how important this is and I hope you trust me, too. I can count a dozen different message strings now from friends, from distant family members sending me messages on various platforms asking me, do you trust it? Is it safe? I heard this. I heard that?

And I think the best I can do is, share a video, share a photo and share my experience when I get the shot to say, yes, I think it's critical, I think it's safe and I think you and everyone should get it, too.

BOLDUAN: Doctor, it's good to see you. Thank you.

DR. DAVIDSON: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, it is the president versus his own party. The great Trump divide of the GOP and what it means for the essential measures that congress needs to get through and need to be signed into law by the end of the year.

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BOLDUAN: Back now to the chaos that President Trump is leaving in his wake as he leaves Washington for the holiday's chaos with very real and immediate ripple effects across the country. Democrats have announced this morning they are scheduling a vote next week to call the president's bluff essentially on wanting to expand COVID relief payments beyond what congress has just approved.

So, what is going to happen? Joining me right now is Democratic Congressman Andy Kim of New Jersey. He sits on the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thanks for coming in. Do you know what's going to happen with this COVID relief bill?

REP. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): Well, first of all, thanks Kate for having me on the show. And I think the word you used the intro of this is chaos. I think that's apt. I don't know what's going to happen next and that should be scary for the American people right now that, we have a president that's unhinged here and playing politics with our lives.

There are so many people right now that are worried about being able to put food on the table; they can't buy gifts for their kids for the holidays. And this president is holding up much-needed help to them during some of the darkest days of American history and that is something that should be unacceptable to all of us. BOLDUAN: Linked to the COVID relief bill is also a government funding

bill. At this point, congressmen, how confident are you that the government is not going to shut down?

KIM: Well, I wish I could project more confidence. I would like to say I'm 100 percent, but I'm not. I'm a former government civil servant that has worked through previous shutdowns before. So I know that is like and how hard it is that our government employees to get through this.

But I was sworn into Congress two years ago during a middle of a government shutdown and I can't put it past this president that he would potentially take those actions. So, we need to work as hard as we can to avoid that. I will do anything I can to be able to avoid a shutdown, and I hope that the president and others bring to the table at same level of commitment.

BOLDUAN: What needs to happen? I mean honestly, because there's real consequences, right? The Treasury Secretary had said that money could be headed out the door to Americans next week and I don't know if that is even possible at this point. As the president is sitting on his hands and sitting on this and possibly vetoing the bill.

There is a lag time between you guys passing it, the president signing it and getting direct payments back out to Americans. What is going - I know it's the same question, but what is going to happen? Are you guys are going to vote on Monday on increasing payments?

Do you have any idea if Republicans are going to go along with this considering the president now says he endorses that idea?