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Crisis Averted, Trump Caves and Signs COVID Relief Bill; TSA Says, U.S. Air Travel was Highest of the Pandemic; Investigators Looking at All Possible Motives in R.V. Explosion. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 28, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I will be watching.

Still ahead, more from Capitol Hill as Democrats push for the $2,000 stimulus checks that were requested by President Trump. Brooke Baldwin continues our coverage.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Brianna, thank you so much. Hi there and welcome to CNN. I am Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me on this Monday.

A deal delayed but not denied. The president caves and signs the coronavirus relief bill after getting none of what he wanted. For the moment, his signature adds at least temporary stability for Americans who really need it the most, people who saw their unemployment benefits expire over the weekend now may only receive 10 instead of 11 weeks of payments. The bill means $600 will soon show up in the bank accounts of most Americans, and Payment Protection Program is open again, giving small businesses a renewed lifeline.

But today, we are watching a pair congressional confrontations, you have the House voting on sending $2,000 checks to Americans and they have a vote to override the president's veto of that massive defense spending bill, and all of this comes as the United States is entering pandemic blind spot. 25 states did not report cases on Christmas Day. So the full brunt of a holiday travel surge likely won't be known for weeks.

But look at the patterns of this pandemic, and you understand the fear. Map the cases and there were explosions of infection following Labor Day and Thanksgiving. And consider this data point as well here. Nearly 1.3 million Americans passed through airports on Sunday. That is the highest level for air travel since this whole pandemic began. We'll have more on the science and the data in just a couple of minutes.

But let's go first to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, she is live from West Palm Beach, Florida. And, Kaitlan, is there a strategy here to the president's decision to now sign the stimulus? KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think if there is, Brooke, even the president's own staff doesn't know what it is. Because when we were talking to White House officials yesterday as the president tweeted, good news is coming, that was, of course, his tweet just a few hours before he did finally sign this deal, White House officials weren't sure what he was going to do

And a lot of it had to do with not being confident in him saying it because of what happened last week where the president released that video that a lot of staff didn't even know he had made, threatening to derail this bill after it was his treasury secretary was negotiating it with Democrats. And, of course, his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, also playing a role in all of that.

So I think there is a lot of question of what it is that the president gained, if anything, from this, because a lot of people, including his own allies, are saying that he only made things worse by doing this. Because, of course, he did not get those $2,000 checks that he wanted, and as a senior White House official pointed out, if he wanted to look like he was fighting that $2,000, he could have been involved in the negotiations a lot earlier, which he was not. He was completely absent from those.

But also he didn't put up much of a fight. It was a few days where the president said he wanted these $2,000 checks, and then he relented and signed the bill, as it was, with the $600 checks last night. And so the only thing that happened from that was that there is now a lapse in those two government unemployment programs, which means there is going to be a lapse and a delay in benefits for millions of Americans.

So if it was the president trying to accomplish something or look like he was fighting for the American people, they don't seem to have gotten that message from what he did over the last several days of this crisis of his own making.

BALDWIN: We'll stay on all of this. Kaitlan Collins, thank you so much for me, in Florida.

For more on this reversal from the president, joining me now, Politico's Melanie Zanona. Melanie, good to see you. Welcome.

MELANIE ZANONA, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: So I want to read this to you in our viewer's playbook summed the president's decision this way. Quote, what a bizarre, embarrassing episode for the president, on what concessions he got, zip, zero, zilch. If he was going to give up this easy, he should have kept quiet, signed the bill.

Do your sources have any idea why the president decided to sign the bill last night after almost signing it on Christmas Eve?

ZANONA: Well, the sources I talked to said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and several other top Republicans had been working all weekend to try to convince him to sign this bill. And he really dug himself in a hole and finally climbed his way out last night. But there are still really tough consequences for the American people. Not only have those benefits lapsed on, Saturday, which means a whole week of benefits might not get out to the American people, but also those checks might not get out to the American people as quickly as they would have been.

And on top of that, there are also political consequences for the GOP. It is now crystal clear that it was the GOP standing in the way of the higher checks. Democrats wanted the higher checks all along. And now, every single House Republican is going to be forced to go on the record today about where they stand on the issue.

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And, essentially, they're going to be asked to either go against the president or go against these millions of Americans who are suffering and could have really used those higher stimulus checks.

BALDWIN: Two of whom I'll be talking to later this hour, and I am sure they will have some choice words for this Congress and this president.

I also mentioned at the top of the show a critical vote later today on the National Defense Authorization Act, overriding the president's veto. Which way do your sources tell you that this vote is leaning?

ZANONA: Well, right now, everyone I talked to on the Hill is pretty confident that Congress is going to overturn this veto, both in the House and the Senate and that would be a very big deal. Congress has yet to do that under Trump's four years.

And it's also significant to see so many Republicans who are finally willing to stand up to this president and rebuke him in such a dramatic way, Brooke. I mean, I think it is important to understand that this is a bipartisan bill that has passed Congress annually for the past 60 years. It includes money for pay raise for the troops.

And they're starting -- at least some of the Republicans are starting to look ahead to a post-Trump GOP. But, no doubt, this is going to be a huge week on Capitol Hill. It's one of the final acts of the 116th Congress. And I think Trump's loyalty is going to be really put to the test.

BALDWIN: Speaking of members of Congress, I am so fascinated about this other piece you put out. So, you reporting on this Republican push to form their own version of AOC's squad, right? So we remember back in 2018 and the women wave and all the Democratic women who were elected. And now, in 2020, so many Republican women were elected.

And so their names here, Congresswoman-elect Nicole Malliotakis, Maria Elvira Salazar, Carlos Gimenez and Victoria Spartz make up the core of this group. They have dubbed themselves The Force. You say their message already has resonance on the Hill. What's their plan here?

ZANONA: Yes. So they saw the Democratic squad led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and saw all the success they had as freshman, which, of course, Brooke, as you know was not usual in Washington to have any sort of influence as a freshman. And so they are really trying to take a page from their playbook, by using social media, by trying to leverage the grassroots energy that helped propel them to Congress.

And their goal is not so much legislative and policy-focused but more messaging-focused. And they are really trying to hammer the left for supporting Democratic socialist ideas and for pulling the party to the left and it could have a real effect. A lot of Democrats are saying that the reason why they lost so many seats in November in the House was because of these GOP antisocialist attacks.

And so this new group of Republicans are really looking to seize on that and use that as sort of momentum going into the New Year.

BALDWIN: The Force. Melanie Zanona, thank you so much. Good to see you.

ZANONA: Thank you.

BALDWIN: I want to turn our attention to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. As the U.S. surpasses the grim milestone of 19 million cases, there is some promising news here. Today, drug maker Novavax announced the start of the phase three trial of its COVID-19 both in the U.S. and Mexico. The federal government paying for up to $1.6 billion in trial costs. And, yes, while it trails behind other drug makers in clinical trials, experts say have said that it will take more than one vaccine to end the pandemic.

CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is with me now. And so, Elizabeth, tell us about this vaccine candidate.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This vaccine, it is very exciting actually to have now a fifth vaccine in phase three clinical trials from this company, Novavax, that, really, was very small, no one necessarily expected much out of them, so let's see what they're doing.

So this phase three trial, like many of its predecessors, will have 30,000 participants. 25 percent will be over age 65, 15 percent black, 10 to 20 percent Latino. That's important because those are the groups that are most at risk for COVID-19.

Like other ones that we've seen, it's two doses, three weeks apart. And this one only requires refrigeration. And that's really important. That means that it might be a lot easier to get this to certain parts of the country than the other two that have already been approved that require freezing to various degrees, no pun intended.

Now, let's take a look at where this stands sort of in the history of COVID-19 vaccines. So, Pfizer and Moderna, of course, we know, are already authorized by the FDA. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, they started theirs back in August and September, those are in progress. They Novavax one, of course, we know, has started today. And Sanofi is in phase one or two. They have not started their phase three yet.

So as we look at Novavax starting today, Brooke, I know the question on everyone's mind, well, how long will it take them to do this phase three trial, unfortunately, the fact that we have such incredibly high rates of COVID-19 helps the trial move along at a more rapid clip.

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The more disease that's out there, the faster these trials go. For Pfizer and Moderna, it took them about three or four months to complete the trials. We can use that almost as a benchmark.

BALDWIN: Well, I heard a phrase this morning where someone said it is not vaccines that save lives, right, it is vaccinations. And so far, roughly 10 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered to states, but the official count says only 2 million have been actually administered.

And I want to play this. This is what one member of the White House task force said about exactly this today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: The 2 million number is probably an underestimate. We distributed to the states 10.8 million doses. That 2 million number is delayed 3 to 7 days. 20 million doses will be distributed to states by the first week in January. That's where we are, probably another 30 million doses in January, another 50 million in February.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, Elizabeth, where do we stand on getting these doses into people's arms?

COHEN: Right. I think when people hear, my goodness, look at all of those doses that have been delivered, but only a relatively small fraction have been put in people's arms. I think, Brooke, that federal officials shot themselves in the foot here, again, no pun intended. They gave this expectation over and over again that we would have 20 million people vaccinated by end of the year, which obviously is not going to -- most likely is not going to happen.

It is one thing to deliver the product to these hospitals, to these nursing homes, but it is another to get shots into arms. You don't just line people up and start stabbing them. This is a process. It takes time. For example, at hospitals, you have to stagger people. You don't want everyone having side effects and calling out of work the next day. At nursing homes, you have to get consent from people. That can be tough if some of these people aren't capable of doing that. This is not a quick and easy process, Brooke.

BALDWIN: We are learning, they are learning as they go. But at least it is 2 million so far. Elizabeth, thank you very much.

Still ahead here on CNN, we will take you back to Washington, as in Washington State, to the nursing home that had one of the first COVID outbreaks in the country. Today, they are receiving their first vaccine doses. And investigators have identified the man who blew up that R.V. in Downtown Nashville but still the motive is unclear.

And later, I'll talk to two Americans who are struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic. Their message to both the president and the United States Congress.

You're watching CNN. I am Brooke Baldwin. We'll be right back.

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BALDWIN: We are back. You're watching CNN. I am Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here.

Despite pleas from public health official to stay home for the Christmas holiday, air travel continues to set pandemic records. The TSA now says that Sunday was the busiest day for air travel since the start of the pandemic with nearly 1.3 million passengers screened.

Now, the increase in air travel stoking new fears of yet another jump in COVID-19 infections, similar to that spike reported following the previous pandemic, air travel records at around Thanksgiving.

CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is live at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. And then, Adrienne, I see a bunch of folks behind you. Why are people traveling? What are they telling you?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brooke, they are traveling for a number of reasons. One family I spoke with said, for them, it is essential. They're traveling to Guatemala to be with their grandfather who is seriously ill. Another family told me back in the spring, the pandemic forced them to cancel their family vacation, so they're making up for lost time. And another woman said, I need an escape, so she and her friends are traveling to Jamaica.

And so she told me she said she feels safe traveling to Jamaica because that country requires you to have a negative COVID test at least ten days prior to boarding the airplane. And then I spoke with another high school student who was traveling with his father. He said just because we're getting on a plane doesn't mean we're not listening to the advice of health officials. Listen in.

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CARTER ERICKSON, TRAVELING TO UTAH: It is a good activity to go outdoors, good for social distancing, you can stay safe with COVID, and we have gone to Utah in the past to ski. So it is a good idea to try to get out of the house.

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BROADDUS: So, bottom line, so many people we heard from today are dealing with pandemic fatigue. Meanwhile, December has been the deadliest month so far, linked to COVID deaths. The virus, Brooke, has killed more than 63,000 people. Brooke?

BALDWIN: Adrienne, thank you so much, in Chicago O'Hare. And she just said it, December has been the deadliest during this entire pandemic. More than 60,000 Americans have lost their lives. And for 26 consecutive days, hospitals nationwide have recorded more than 100,000 COVID patients.

Yet Dr. Anthony Fauci told Dana Bash that he believes the worst is actually yet to come.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We very well might see a host of seasonal in the sense of Christmas, New Year's surge, and as I've described it, as a surge upon a surge.

When you're dealing with a baseline of 200,000 cases, new cases a day, and about 2,000 deaths per day, with the hospitalizations up over 120,000, we're really at a very critical point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: To that point, let's go to CNN Contributor Erin Bromage. He is a Professor of Biology, specializing in immunology at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. So, Professor, welcome back.

Just listening to Dr. Fauci, do you agree that the worst is yet to come and can we even wrap our heads around what the worst will even look like?

ERIN BROMAGE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. So Dr. Fauci is very much right in what he's saying. The infections that have happened post- Thanksgiving are only just starting to roll into our hospitals now, coming up as deaths now. So we've had months of -- like a month of 200,000 cases per day, they are still yet to end in the ICU and in hospital. So we're looking at pretty dark days coming into early January.

Then we've got to look at what the infections -- I mean, we're seeing a lot of travel. Travel by itself does not necessarily indicate infection but it's a good -- mobility is a good indicator that infections will rise. If we're getting 200,000 now and we get a surge on top of that, we could be rolling into February with the events of Christmas still impacting us, even with this vaccine coming out.

BALDWIN: So, that's still reverberating in February. Then you add this potential complication being this coronavirus variant. I was reading about this over the weekend because, at first, it was the U.K.-based variant. Now, it is in so many other countries. And I was reading that, according to this one British study, it's 56 percent more contagious. But doctors say that this current vaccine inoculates against it. And since we know so little about the variant, Erin, how do scientists know that for sure?

BROMAGE: Yes. We've got to tread really lightly with this data. It is very interesting. It is indicative that something is going on, but we really don't know if -- we're not scientifically sure that it is more transmissible. It appears to be but just because we throw more money and more attention at it, we don't get results as quickly as people would like.

So we do need to keep an eye on what's happening there. It certainly is becoming the predominant variant in London and around U.K. We are seeing it around the world. But a really great study this morning actually showed that it was in the U.K. late August, early September. So it has taken awhile to get to this point in London particularly.

Now, in regards to the vaccine, we're only looking at one point change, the one mutation that's actually happened on that spike protein. And so, like, if you think of your hand as being a really important part, it is just like the thumb changed a little bit. So the other fingers are still there, they still look the same, so the vaccine should recognize those other four fingers and be just as effective.

We still need to demonstrate that that is the case, but the way we look at it at the moment is the vaccine as well as prior infection should be enough to protect you from this new variant.

BALDWIN: I understand. I appreciate that explanation.

Last quick question just before you go. What's your advice to people watching who want to celebrate New Year's Eve but do so safely?

BROMAGE: Really, is that just do it safely, so we know outdoors is better than indoors, distance as much as you possibly can, ventilation where you can't get the distance and masks always. If we can just do those or do two out of those three, we're going to have a safer new year and we won't see the surge that we are going through right now.

Really, the future is up to us, the next month or so is up to us, not up to the vaccine. So just make smart choices.

BALDWIN: Erin Bromage, great to have you on. Thank you so much, as always, for your wise words, sir. I appreciate it.

Coming up next, we are live in Nashville, as police are trying to figure out why this 63-year-old man would want to blow up this R.V. in the middle of Downtown Nashville in front of this AT&T building.

Also ahead, Lori Loughlin has been released from prison after serving those two months for her role in that college admission scandal. More on that, coming up.

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[13:25:00] BALDWIN: New today, actress Lori Loughlin, who was at the center of that college admission scandal, has now been released from prison. She spent the past two months at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, after pleading guilty to paying a half million in bribes to get her daughters into University of Southern California.

Her husband is still serving his five-month. He is set to be released in April. Loughlin is also expected to complete 100 hours of community service.

Now that authorities have identified the man responsible for that Christmas Day explosion in Nashville, they're trying to figure out why he did it. Investigators are looking for clues about why Anthony Quinn Warner drove his R.V. to Downtown Nashville and set off this explosion. Look at this.

Neighbors and business associates are telling federal investigators what they know about the 63-year-old computer consultant.

CNN Crime and Justice Reporter Shimon Prokupecz is live for us there in Nashville. And, Shimon, what are authorities telling you? Who was this guy?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes. So they're still trying to really figure this out, Brooke, because there is no clear motive. There isn't that note that someone would leave behind, saying, oh, this is why I did this.

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