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Senate Overrides Veto of Defense Authorization Act; U.S. Eclipses 20 Million COVID Cases As We Enter a New Year. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 01, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN AVLON, CNN HOST: Hello, and happy New Year to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Avlon in New York, and you're watching a special New Year's Day edition of CNN NEWSROOM.

We begin with breaking news on Capitol Hill. The Senate rebuking the defense on a massive defense spending bill by overriding his veto.

Joining me now, CNN congressional correspondent Phil Mattingly.

Phil, tell us how we got here and how big a deal is this?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, I think you need to put it into context, right?

[14:00:02]

This is a bill that's been signed into law 59 consecutive years. It always passes with wide bipartisan margins, and I think everybody who worked on the bill this time around, if you looked at the initial votes before the veto override, it was pretty clear the support was there to override any veto.

And yet President Trump vetoed this legislation for a couple reasons that even his Republican allies said were not based in reality. One, he wanted the repeal of section 230. He talks about it constantly. That's now really germane to a defense policy bill, that's what the Republican defense hawks on the Hill were trying to tell the president.

He said it was weak on China and Russia. You talk to Republicans who helped draft the bill, they claim it was strongest on those areas than it has been in a while. Cyber is a huge piece of this bill. Obviously, the country is still on a middle of a cyberattack right now.

And then the renaming of U.S. military bases that were named after Confederate generals. That for some reason became a huge issue for President Trump and it had plenty of support to override on Capitol Hill. So, what's happening at this moment, the president vetoed it. The

House by a very wide margin voted to override that veto last week. And the Senate is doing the same at this moment. They have passed the two thirds threshold, still voting at the moment.

But if it goes like the procedure votes, John, we've seen over the course of the last couple days, the president isn't just going to lose this vote, he's going to get thumped on this vote with at least 80 percent, perhaps more senators voting in favor of overriding his veto. And it's worth noting. This will likely be the last act of the 116th Congress, at least last big roll call vote, and also the first time President Trump has had any legislation he's vetoed overridden.

AVLON: Well, and that's a big thump, if we get 80 votes to that effect.

Just to confirm, this is without any of the corrections that the president requested. This is the original bill, so nary a win, a decisive defeat for Donald Trump.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, to quote --

AVLON: Go on?

MATTINGLY: Yeah. Look to quote Mac Thornberry. He's the top Republican in the House Armed Services, not even a comma was changed in this legislation. This is verbatim, the legislation voted on earlier by the House and Senate and passed. This is verbatim, the legislation the president vetoed. He demanded changes, no changes were made, and wide bipartisan majorities voting to override the president's veto.

And again, it's kind of symbolic, one of the last acts of the 116th Congress is Democrats and Republicans joining together with a very large vote to essentially tell the president to go pound sand on this particular issue.

AVLON: All right. I just want to bring in CNN's White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins.

Kaitlan, what do we expect the reaction from the White House will be once this is official?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the president seemed to understand that this was something not only likely, but very likely that could happen, and he's been complaining in recent days that this is going to happen, saying that Republicans should not pass this bill, stating that pretty explicitly in a series of tweets, while he was till in Florida, before he came back here to Washington yesterday.

And so, he knew this was coming, because Republicans came to the president, urged him not to veto this initially when the president was indicating that he would. Though, of course, he did for the through with it. So, it's notable for all the reasons Phil just laid out, you know, this major rebuke of the president when he's got less than two weeks -- a little over two weeks left in office.

But also it's showing how the president is willing to go to war with his own party and something that they view is so critical in these last few weeks here in office, because look at what he just tweeted a few moments ago, threatening to primary the number two Republican John Thune, saying that the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem should run against him in 2012.

She has said she does not have interest in doing that. She wants to run for governor again. There's questions about whether or not she would actually run for president as well.

But you're just saying a remarkable split between the president and his own party on several matters, including the $2,000 stimulus checks, but also when it comes to this as well. And I think that's really telling that that's one of the big takeaways from his final few days here in office.

AVLON: That is extraordinarily telling, in fact the president is calling for a primary challenge to John Thune. If you're his 99 percent ally but he apparently sees you as an enemy, extraordinary.

OK. Phil, this comes as we've learned that 140 House Republicans will object to the Electoral College results next week. There was an extraordinary conference call yesterday between Senate Republicans. Tell us what happened.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, this gets at what Kaitlan was getting at, this fascinating dynamic that's playing out on Capitol Hill right now, where you have Republicans who are very clearly ready to move on. They are very clearly willing to acknowledge reality, and that's that Joe Biden is president-elect, and willing to acknowledge while Donald Trump may have extreme power within the party, because of his popularity with the base particular particularly, he will no longer be the leader of the party from a policy perspective and from governmental perspective.

This phone call that happened yesterday morning was Senate Majority Leader McConnell with his conference, and during that phone call asking Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican, who has said publicly he will object during the electoral vote count on January 6th, thus leading both chambers to have to recess and vote on those objections, McConnell asked Hawley to explain why, explain his rationale and explain his plan.

[14:05:00]

One problem, Josh Hawley was not on the call. It took a while for McConnell to recognize that.

But the interesting thing, two things that happened that I think are really interesting. One, when Hawley didn't answer because he wasn't on the call, one Republican who did was Senator Pat Toomey.

He's a very conservative Pennsylvania Republican who pointed out that Hawley who has talked about Pennsylvania as being one of the states he wanted to object to, was basically wrong. Toomey going through why he thought Pennsylvania's electoral results were accurate, why the slate of electors was accurate and why there was no significant fraud of the problems that have been pointed out related to state election laws were accurate as well.

So, Toomey stepping in to the void there, and trying to tell Republicans this is the bad idea. The other was McConnell himself, who warned a few weeks ago, Republicans not to go down this road, because he knew it would involve a vote that would require Republicans to either vote for President-elect Biden in reality or vote for President Trump. And the implications of that for both political and for the country's sake is something McConnell didn't want to go through.

But McConnell made clear, even though he's been in the Senate for as long as he has, more than 30 years, he said this would be one of the most significant votes he had to take, acknowledging that the dynamics at play here are very fluid, very dicey. And I think that he's trying to get Republicans on board saying this used to be a pro forma vote, let's try to make it that again even if Josh Hawley is not there to make that happen.

AVLON: Defending democracy, fascinating behind the scenes there.

Kaitlan, the Justice Department just asked a federal judge Thursday to toss that lawsuit from Congressman Louis Gohmert which was designed to force Vice President Pence to overturn the 2020 results. Louis Gohmert just responded. So, what did he say?

COLLINS: Yeah, he did, and he's kind of taking a jab at the vice president here, referring to the role he's going to take next weeks when Congress does meet an as envelope opener, saying in the statement he just put out, in response to what the Justice Department said to these attorneys asking this federal court to reject this lawsuit, and Louis Gohmert said -- they say the vice president, the glorified envelope opener in chief has no priority to preside over anything else, or to decide anything of substance or even to count the votes in those envelopes. He's only the envelope opener.

Louis Gohmert kind of making the point that other people have been saying which is that the vice president only has a ceremonial role in next week. So despite what the president and his allying have been implying, he's not going to be able to do anything to change the outcome of the election, neither are the lawmakers as we've laid out here, but increasingly you've seen people start to look too the vice president in this lawsuit, for example, where it's pitting the president's Republican allies against the Justice Department and the vice president here.

So what actually happens? What role Pence ultimately takes is still to be determined. I'm not even sure if the vice president and his team have made a decision what that will look like, but it is going to be another twist to the drama next week, as you see people trying to balance, you know, not voting against democracy, but staying loyal to the president, demanding actions like these and paying very close attention to who is fighting for him and who is not. AVLON: Vice President Pence caught in the crossfire there. It's worth

reiterating, the person who opens the envelope at the Oscars does not pick the best picture winner.

All right. Kaitlan, Phil, thank you very much. We'll talk to you soon.

All right. Joining me now, Democratic congresswoman from Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester. She also co-chairs the presidential inaugural committee.

Congresswoman, your reaction to this override of the president's veto?

REP. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER (D-DE): Well, first of all, let me say happy New Year to all of your viewers.

AVLON: Happy New Year to you too.

ROCHESTER: We have to start off with that, because I think, you know, so many of us are looking forward to a New Year and new day with a new administration. And in response to the override veto, I think it was very much expected, you know, as was stated in your story, that the president really was on the wrong side here, and it was a bipartisan passage of the bill. I think, you know, it's going to shakeout just the way we thought it was.

But again, I think for most of us, we are just looking forward to a new day with Joe Biden as our president and Kamala Harris as our vice president. And I'm very happy to be representing the presidential inaugural committee.

AVLON: I want to get to that. Indeed we'll have that new date in around 20 days.

But are you surprised so many House Republican colleagues, first, plan to object to counting the Electoral College votes?

ROCHESTER: You know, the reality is that on January 20th, Joe Biden is going to be sworn in as our president. You know, there have been lawsuits, a number of lawsuits that President Trump has put forward that have failed. There is going to be a swearing-in, and I think those members, my colleagues, they have a right to object, but they also have a duty and a responsibility both to the Constitution, to the voters, and to the electors.

And so, for me, what I want to see is how they respond after we certified this, after Joe Biden is sworn in.

[14:10:08]

Will they come together and unite for this country and put people, the American people over politics? That's really what will be present, is people over politics.

AVLON: So what you're basically saying is this is a bit of kabuki, and you want to see how they follow through after the inevitable occurs. My question is, have you ever had any conversation with his the Biden transition or the Democratic House leadership about next Wednesday's vote, and how they intend to deal with it and then try to bring people together after the fact?

ROCHESTER: Yes. You know, again, like I said, folks have a right to do what, you know, they're able to do, but we as a caucus are prepared for any of those objections. There have been conversations.

And again, our focus is really moving past these days and getting to the real work that people are looking forward to. I mean, think about it, we have -- we are in the middle of a pandemic. People are dying.

You know, one of the things that will be done for the inaugural ceremony will be the first of its kind memorial for unity, to bring this country together. We will be lighting the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pond, which has never happened before, the pool, and asking people across the country at 5:30, the day before the swearing-in, to ring bells, to light up buildings, to show our unity across this country.

And, you know, the individuals who are in Congress represent the people, and the people want to crush the virus, just like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have said. The people want to build back better, as Joe Biden has said. And the people want unity, so that we can move forward.

So, I am hopeful. I'm excited of what was going to be present on January 20th, as well as the memorial that we do on the 19th.

But I -- you know, to my colleagues, I'm fortunate. I'm the one representative from the state of Delaware, so I tried to make sure that I have a lot of alliances and allegiance with his different members in the House. And, you know, I say to my Republican colleagues, we have to come together. We have to come together for the people. There are too many big things that need to be done.

AVLON: So, how do you think Joe Biden can do that on inauguration day? This is going to be a very different inauguration day. A lot of the pomp and circumstance are going to be put aside because of COVID, because of the pandemic.

But what can Americans expect to see? And what do you hope Biden says, as he undertakes this enormous task of reuniting the nation?

ROCHESTER: Well, I think, first of all, you're going to see that this inaugural takes place the same way that he campaigned, in a responsible way, watching out for people's health and safety. So we're asking people to participate in many ways from across the country, whether it is the ringing of the bells, whether it is, you know, participating through sending in stories through the website.

We will be doing some innovative and creative things, but at the same time focusing on those traditions that people are used to, like watching the swearing-in on the Capitol steps, that iconic picture that we are used to seeing along -- as he takes the oath, and also to have Kamala Harris, you know, the first woman to be vice president to take the oath. I think there will be special moments, as well as ways to participate

across the country. So, we're very excited about the inauguration.

AVLON: Well, the peaceful transfer of power is what democracy is all about.

Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, thanks so much for joining us and happy New Year.

ROCHESTER: Thank you, and happy New Year.

AVLON: All right. This just in, new word from Dr. Fauci about whether the U.S. will delay the second doses, this as the U.S. surpasses another tragic milestone.

Plus, one of the Republican incumbents in the Georgia Senate runoffs will likely be off the campaign trail until Election Day. That's because he's in quarantine after one of his staffers tested positive for COVID.

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[14:18:56]

AVLON: Now to the coronavirus, and an ominous start to 2021 today. The U.S. crossing 20 million total COVID-19 cases, as 2020 provides a painful reminder of the pandemic's cost. COVID-19 took 10,000 American lives in the final three days of the year alone. And the officials in charge of the vaccine mission appear no closer to fixing a botched roll-out.

Long lines in Florida and Tennessee show the demand is high, but logistical follow-through has been lacking. The numbers from the CDC showing there's more vaccine that refrigerators that has been injected in American arms. The slow pace of vaccinations is now sparking a big discussion -- does the U.S. need to change its strategies?

Let's bring in CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and CNN's Kristen Holmes.

Elizabeth, the U.K. changed its COVID-19 vaccine dosing guidance, and you just spoke to Dr. Anthony Fauci about what he thinks about the change. What did he say?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: He said not happening here in the U.S., John, that's he said. He said, we go by data, and the data shows that it works.

[14:20:01]

It's 95 percent effective. When you space it out by a few weeks, the Pfizer vaccine by 21 days, and the Moderna vaccine by 28, he said that's what the data show. We're not going to mess around with that. That's where we're going to do.

But I think something you just said, John, helps explain that. You said there's more sitting around in fridge and freezers than going into arms. The issue in the U.S. at this point is not the supply. The issue is getting it into arms.

So there's not a shortage per se, it's that it's not getting into arms fast enough -- John.

AVLON: That's very important information from Dr. Fauci. Thank you, Elizabeth.

Kristen, you also have new reporting about how the Trump administration is viewing all of this?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John.

So, I spoke with a senior official that it has come up, this idea of giving out that held-back second dose to citizens because of the fact the roll-out has been slow. It particularly came up after the U.K. made their announcement.

However, this is not something that the federal government or federal officials believe is a viable option at this time. So piggybacking off what Dr. Fauci said, the administration themselves not looking at this as a viable option, particularly after the Pfizer statement came out warning that there was no data showing that one dose would prove to be effective.

You have to remember this, we talk about these two-dose system. Federal officials as well at health officials were already concerned that Americans would not get that second dose, that for whatever reason they would forget, they wouldn't do it on time, there would be issues with the second dose. That could lead to a lot of complications.

So the idea that they could potentially have a scenario in which people didn't have access to a second dose, well, that's just adding a whole range of things. As you said, a complicated roll-out that doesn't seem to be getting better at this time.

AVLON: But important news, unified front, stay the course.

Elizabeth Cohen and Kristen Holmes, thank you very much, and happy New Year.

All right. The New Year is bringing sobering new records along with it unfortunately. More than 125,000 Americans are fighting for their lives right now in hospitals across our country. In states like California, the situation is dire, more than 21,000 infected patients in the Golden State are hospitalized right now, with 30,000 new daily cases reported just yesterday, and 563 new deaths reported yesterday as well, a record high for the state.

As one health official warns, the state is on the brink of catastrophe.

Well, my guest is on the front line of California's crisis, Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, a CNN medical analyst and an internal medicine and viral specialist in Los Angeles.

Dr. Rodriguez, describe what you're seeing in Los Angeles now and how it compares to the height of the first wave.

DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It is. it's unfortunate. I live in sort of a zone between two major hospitals, and just by going outside, you can hear the increase in ambulances. My fellow doctors and nurses are reporting emergency rooms that are overflowing, ambulances that are waiting around the block. Certain hospitals have started using to their chapels and their gift storage as patient rooms, and some hospitals have started creating outside facilities.

Even the infrastructure can't hold up with the demand of giving patients oxygen. We are at a real crisis point here.

AVLON: That is harrowing. Hospitals using chapels and gift shops to hold patients right now.

RODRIGUEZ: Right.

AVLON: Why is it getting so much worse in California?

RODRIGUEZ: You know, that's the question, isn't it? We were really so proud of how we are doing, there is not a contest. If you look at the per capita, you know, California is still, you know, not at the top.

We're the most populous state and we have such a diverse population and people going in and out, and so, it's disheartening to see, you know, some of these people who feel over-privileged having parties when so many are struggling.

I just want to take a moment to thank the unsung heroes of this pandemic, and these are the average Americans who have sacrificed their family time and their jobs by doing the right thing day in and day out, by wearing masks and distancing. They have probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and I want to thank them. So let's not forget the good parts, either.

AVLON: That's an important point and thank you for raising it.

Now, that highly contagious new variant has now been found in three separate COVID patients in San Diego. Officials warn it could be running rampant in the city.

So, how are hospitals prepared to deal with this new strain, with resources so stretched thin already?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think that the answer is part of the question, I mean, the answer to the question you asked me last time, there could be a high number of variants here in southern California area. We are not equipped to check genome typing?

How are we going to handle this? As best we can. That highly infectious virus will create more people getting sick, luckily not more people dying, we think, but more people accessing a care in a system that is already at the brink. [14:25:07]

AVLON: Well, to add insult to injury, last night, thousands of people in Valencia, which is in L.A. County, gathered for a church concert in protest of masks, and limited indoor church services.

I want you to listen to some of the attendees.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have those concerns, but this is something that I really feel I need to be a part of, and so I'm here. And we're all going to get the virus at some point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that there's more harm done in shutting everything down than simply allowing the very God-created need to socialize to flourish.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Doctor, what would you say to those individuals? How can you get a state to get its arm around the crisis with that kind of an attitude and approach?

RODRIGUEZ: You know, John, I consider myself spiritual. I have my own religious beliefs. I think the same God that is telling those people, you know, to -- that they deserve the fry dom are the same gods that are helping the scientists and guiding the healthcare workers to provide solutions. We are all being guided by the hand of God, if you believe that.

So I think they need to listen. If they really want to follow the basis of every Christian tenet, you know, it's to help thy neighbor. And you help thy neighbor by keeping thy neighbor healthy and protecting them. That doesn't mean just giving them bread. That means not giving them a disease.

So what is the sacrifice? I mean, seriously. I was raised Catholic. It's all about sacrificing for others, and this is the time to really -- if that's what you believe, put that at the forefront of your actions. That's what I would tell them.

AVLON: Treat other people as you would like to be treated, the golden rule. Dr. Rodriguez, thank you very much and happy New Year.

RODRIGUEZ: Happy New Year to you.

AVLON: Right, Vice President Pence now facing Twitter attacks from the president he has been so loyal to for four years, and being sued by a member of his own party to try to do the president's bidding and undermine our democracy.

I'll speak to the author of a book about Pence, what his relationship must be like now with Trump behind the scenes.

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