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U.S. Tops 20 Million COVID-19 Cases; Senate Rebukes Trump, Overrides Veto of Defense Spending Bill. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 01, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

JOHN AVLON, CNN HOST: Top of the hour now. You're watching a special New Year's Day edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Avlon in New York.

And we begin with a message today from the Senate to the president, the Senate voting to override President Trump's veto of a mammoth defense spending bill.

Let's go to CNN's Phil Mattingly for more.

Phil, a pretty remarkable last hour. Tell us what happened.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and it wasn't even close.

This is -- let's first talk about the policy, right? And I think it's -- it underscores why this was a fight that the president probably never should have picked to begin with. This is the National Defense Authorization Act. It is essentially the central defense policy bill, as outlined by legislators.

And, for the last 60 years, it has been passed by Congress with usually pretty wide bipartisan margins. This year was no different. The difference was President Trump, who opposed the bill, not on necessarily defense policy grounds, which is the core of what it is -- it also includes a pay raise for troops, I would add -- but he opposed it because it did not include online liability protections, a repeal of Section 230, which has been an issue of his for a while, not germane to the bill, which a number of Republicans, including those who helped draft the bill, tried to tell the president repeatedly.

He was upset that the bill put in a commission that would lead to the change in names of military bases named after Confederate generals, again, not a fight that the president had a lot of chance of winning, given that, again, it was just a small component of this bill.

Also, the president complained pretty regularly that this bill was soft on China and Russia, something the Republican sponsors and drafters of this bill said was absolutely wrong.

So, you start from the kind of baseline of, this is always bipartisan legislation, it always passes by wide bipartisan margins, and these are issues that the president wasn't necessarily going to win on. However, the fact that this is the first veto of President Trump -- veto override of President Trump in his four years, it is likely the last roll call vote of the 116th. Congress, and again, it was not even close.

Two-thirds were needed to override the veto. They had 81 votes. That means the House and the Senate, by wide bipartisan margins, have told the president, no dice on this one. The NDAA will be law.

AVLON: That is a thumping by any measure, and a heck of a way to go out--

MATTINGLY: Yes.

AVLON: -- from a Republican Congress that's worked so hard to support this president.

So, what do we know about the latest efforts among House Republicans to subvert the election?

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: That is a blunt and accurate way to put things, I guess.

Look, everybody's eyes right now are on January 6, right? That is when the United States Congress will convene for a joint session, and they will count the electors.

And, John, you know this very, very well. This is traditionally, every four years, a rather pro forma thing. Everybody acknowledges what has occurred. This year is different, because a lot of people, at least publicly, on the Republican side of the aisle are not acknowledging the reality that Joe Biden is the president-elect and Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20.

Here's where things stand right now. The House Republicans, more than 140 -- and that number is likely to grow, I'm told -- say they are going to object to at least one slate of electors, perhaps even more. What is necessary for this to actually have any tangible effect or action on the day is for a senator join them.

And we now know Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri will join in at least one objection. He hasn't laid out his exact plans yet. Now, what does this actually mean?

And I think this is important to state. In terms of who will be the next president of the United States, it means absolutely nothing. In terms of January 6, it means it's going to be a very long day.

So, basically, if you have an objection from a House member and from a Senate member, and they pair up, both chambers of Congress then recess. Then they have a two-hour debate, maximum two-hour debate. And then they vote on that objection. Democrats control the House. A number of Republicans in the Senate

have made clear, even though they control the chamber, they believe Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States. Both of those votes in both chambers will fail, no matter how many objections there are, no matter how many votes that it leads to.

The most interesting element of everything that's going on right now is, this has basically sparked a civil war inside the Republican Party, particularly in the United States Senate, where there are a number of Republican senators, particularly those up in 2022, who are saying, I don't want to have to take a vote against reality, Joe Biden is the next president of the United States, or President Trump, who obviously still commands quite a following in the Republican base.

AVLON: It's a stunning thing we're going to confront, but what you said is so important. This essentially means a two-hour debate. It does not change the outcome.

[15:05:02]

But there are huge implications for the state of our democracy, as well as the Republican Party.

Phil Mattingly, thank you very much, my friend, and happy new year.

All right, joining me now, "New York Magazine"'s Olivia Nuzzi and staff writer for "The Atlantic" McKay Coppins, two of the great chroniclers of the Trump era.

McKay, we will start with you.

Last hour, the Senate override the president's veto to the National Defense Authorization Act, quite a smackdown on the way out the door. What do you think the reaction will be inside the White House?

MCKAY COPPINS, "THE ATLANTIC": Oh, I imagine we can guess what the White House reaction will be. The president will be irate. He will rant and rave. He will promise vengeance and may actually be in a position to bring some to the Republicans who didn't vote his way.

Regardless of kind of what he decides to do four years from now, he's going to remain a force in the Republican Party. But I do think that it's kind of the perfect capstone to the Donald Trump presidency, right? This is a man who has never really cared much about governance, has never really cared much about the Republican Party, has done everything he can to alienate people in Congress, and for the most part has watched Republicans stand by him.

And the fact that there was, in this kind of final moment of his presidency, a bipartisan rebuke, however small or minor, I think does show just how much wreckage he's left behind him over the past four years.

AVLON: Olivia, you have been a chronicler of said wreckage.

And now the president's announcing an election protest rally set for January six at 11:00 a.m. What are you hearing? What can we expect?

OLIVIA NUZZI, "NEW YORK MAGAZINE": You know, the interesting thing to me, besides this smackdown, as I think McKay just called it, being a perfect way to end things, this is also kind of a portrait of the president very isolated.

Everyone that I talk to who ordinarily is around the president has said that they sometimes don't even know who is next to him. When he was at Mar-a-Lago, he was very isolated. People who are typically around him were not.

He has sort of just had this vacuum filled by people who are the worst-of-the-worst yes-men, who are telling him what he wants to hear, who are telling him to do the most destructive things. And this is kind of, of course, I think, how he's going out, sort of very angrily and frustrated and isolated and surrounded by people who are bringing out and encouraging his worst instincts.

And so, when he came back early from Mar-a-Lago and skipped his New Year's Eve event last night, I think we all knew that he was going to be planning something. And I'm sure that, besides this January 6 event, he will be planning all sorts of other things before he finally has to head out the door on January 20.

AVLON: Parting gifts to the republic.

(LAUGHTER)

AVLON: I'm going to stick with you, Olivia.

Louie Gohmert responded to Vice President Pence's attempt to dismiss this election lawsuit today. He called Pence the glorified envelope- opener in chief.

My question to you is, how seriously should anyone take Louie Gohmert?

(LAUGHTER)

NUZZI: I think, generally, the answer to that is not very.

And it's interesting that we're talking about Louie Gohmert. I was talking to a Republican official a few minutes ago about Josh Hawley and what he's doing and how establishment Republicans view what he's doing right now.

And this person said -- I'm quoting -- "He's not some moron like Louie Gohmert" and that the reason why people are being harsher in how they're -- how they're assessing what Josh Hawley is doing is because it seems so much more cynical, whereas, in Washington, at least, among establishment Republicans, Louie Gohmert has always been viewed and continues to be viewed as pretty much a joke.

AVLON: McKay, I want you to take a listen to comments that congressman-elect Carlos Gimenez made this morning. And then I want to get your reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLOS GIMENEZ (R), FLORIDA CONGRESSMAN-ELECT: At this point, I haven't seen anything. But, again, the argument is that a lot of the evidence has never been brought to court.

The court has -- the courts have basically shot down these challenges due to procedural grounds. There are so many things that I saw from other states that shouldn't have happened that lead us -- a lot of people to speculation that, hey, there's some hanky-panky going around.

Now, I'm not saying that there was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Now, what I love about that is, it's the kind of thing you hear a lot, Republicans saying, look, there's a lot of confusion around the election, and that's why we should have this vote--

COPPINS: Yes.

AVLON: -- when, of course, it's the president and, in some cases, the vote that's increasing the confusion.

So, McKay, what's your take on that kind of logic or illogic you're hearing from Republicans lately?

COPPINS: Well, what's interesting is, it's Donald Trump's "A lot of people are saying" logic, right?

The -- this has been a hallmark of the Trump presidency, where he where he will say -- assert, basically, without any evidence, that something is happening, a conspiracy theory, some kind of nefarious activity by Democrats or his political or ideological foes, and then just kind of create out of thin air this narrative, that then the rest of the Republican Party will sort of say, well, I'm hearing from my constituents that -- about this, and it's clearly something that a lot of people are concerned about, and, therefore, I need to take it seriously.

[15:10:23]

And so it's this kind of--

AVLON: A circular--

COPPINS: Yes, it's a self-perpetuating thing, where they can pretend like they're kind of doing the statesmanlike thing by taking their constituency seriously, when, in fact, they all know what reality is. They're just kind of too afraid to say it.

AVLON: All right.

McKay Coppins, Olivia Nuzzi, I recommend everything you write. Thank you very much. Happy new year to you both. All right, the United States starts the new year by crossing another

grim milestone, more than 20 million cases, as concern grows over new strains now spreading around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:15:48]

AVLON: A new year and a new sobering pandemic milestone, the United States crossing the 20 million COVID-19 case mark, as the gap between the number of vaccine doses distributed and the number of Americans to get shots in the arm is stunning.

It's being described as inexcusable and incomprehensible from Senator Mitt Romney. The question of how to fix it includes potential rethinking of the entire vaccine strategy and stretching doses to give people more immunity.

So, CNN's Nick Watt joins me now.

Nick, an awful start to the new year in that regard. What more can you tell us?

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's more awfulness, I'm afraid, John.

Here in California, we have just set a new daily record, the most deaths reported in a day, 585. And, as a country, we have just passed 20 million confirmed cases. That means at least -- it's about one in 16 Americans have already been infected by this virus.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (voice-over): From Wuhan, where all this began to New York, not much fondness in the farewell to a terrible year.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And 2020 is gone. It's done.

ANDY COHEN, CNN HOST: And 2020 is freaking gone.

WATT: 2020 was tough, but:

ERIC GARCETTI (D), MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: We are still going to have our toughest and darkest days.

WATT: An L.A. County official says hospitals are -- quote -- "on the brink of catastrophe."

SCOTT BRICKNER, REGISTERED NURSE, CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER: It's like treading water from 100 feet below the surface. You're already drowning, but you just have to keep trying, because that's what you can do.

WATT: Today in Atlanta, a field hospital reopens for business at the Georgia World Congress Center. Meanwhile:

DR. KATHLEEN TOOMEY, COMMISSIONER, GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH: In many parts of rural Georgia, both in the north and the south, there's vaccine available and literally sitting in freezers. That's not acceptable. We have -- we have lives to save.

WATT: They're just not getting the hoped-for uptake from medical workers. In West Virginia, 42 people were given antibodies, not the vaccine, by mistake. In Wisconsin, a pharmacist now in custody after destroying 500 doses, taking them out of refrigeration.

The administration projected 20 million would have had vaccine dose number one by now -- the reality, not even 2.8 million reported.

DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: States and localities need resources. They need funding. I expected that we would see bumps enroll, but I didn't expect that we would see this lack of consistency across the states.

WATT: And that new faster-spreading coronavirus variant now detected in Colorado, California, and maybe Florida.

DR. SAJU MATHEW, PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN AND PUBLIC HEALTH SPECIALIST: I think we have to assume that this strain has been in the U.S. for a long time.

WATT: December, by the numbers, was the worst month of the pandemic, the most confirmed cases, the most deaths, 10,000 lives lost in the last three days alone.

MATHEW: We do have these vaccines. We just need to hunker down and get there.

WATT: In 2020, 345,737 people confirmed killed by COVID-19 in America. In 2021, how many more?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, the British have just decided to space out the time between dose one and dose. It's going to go to maybe 12 weeks. It was three.

Now, the reason they're doing that is, they want to try and get as many first doses into arms as they can as quick as possible. But Dr. Fauci says the U.S. will not be following suit. He says we are going to continue following the science and continue following what worked well in the trials, dose one and, about three weeks later, dose two -- John.

AVLON: That's the way it's been designed.

Nick Watt, thank you very much, as always, from California. And happy new year.

All right, Dr. Leana Wen is a CNN medical analyst and the former health commissioner for Baltimore.

Dr. Wen, how does this U.K. variant that's now been detected in three states and is apparently even more transmissible deepen the current health crisis in our country?

[15:20:01]

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, the good thing about the U.K. variant is that, for the individual who ends up getting that variant, it doesn't appear that it's more virulent. So, the individual is not more likely to be hospitalized or to die than if they got the other variants.

The problem, though, is, on a population level, if you have something that spreads even more readily than the variants we have there, then we're going to, by definition, seem more hospitalizations. That's going to overwhelm our hospital systems even more.

And we're going to see, unfortunately, more deaths. And so I hope people will take away from this the importance of hunkering down once again. We need to get these vaccines out to people absolutely as urgently as possible, and, in the meantime, to keep up masking, physical distancing and avoiding indoor gatherings.

AVLON: Absolutely.

Now, with this new variant spreading, though, vaccine is more crucial than ever. And, as you heard, Dr. Fauci just said the U.S. will not follow the U.K.'s decision in delaying that second dose in order to administer more first doses. You agree that's the right move?

WEN: I do.

I understand the desire to, let's say, stretch out the doses that we have and to say, hey, if one dose can offer some partial protection, why not give it to as many people as we can?

The problem, though, is that that's not how the studies were conducted. The studies were conducted for both Pfizer and Moderna with the second dose given within three weeks or four weeks, depending on the vaccine.

And the key is to follow the science. We don't know what happens, how long the immunity lasts. We don't know how complete that protection is. We don't know what happens if you get the second dose several weeks after or several months after when it was initially intended.

And I think there is enough vaccine hesitancy and concern in this country. The last thing that we want to do is to add more unnecessary concern, when, actually, that's not the problem. The problem we're having now is that the vaccines that we do have are not being distributed.

So, let's not create more problems.

AVLON: That's exactly right.

And that brings us to the point that the administration of the vaccine has varied greatly from state to state. So, look at these three states, Texas, California and Florida. According to the CDC, only about 20 percent of the vaccines distributed to them have been administered.

So, what's the source of the lag we're seeing in some states and not in others?

WEN: Well, there is a lot of inconsistency between the states in terms of who they are vaccinating, what procedures they're using.

I think the federal government should have set out much clearer guidelines and expectations for these states, basically use it or you lose it. I -- also, there was a lot of overpromising by the federal government, and not providing the resources that local and state health departments have been saying for months that they need.

And I think that still needs to be done, even as we recognize that we are really months behind where we should be at this point. And it's a profound tragedy for there to be millions of doses that are sitting in freezers, where there are thousands of people dying every day who could have been saved if they had received the vaccines in time.

AVLON: It's always -- it's always a good idea to underpromise and overdeliver, not the opposite.

Dr. Leana Wen, thank you very much and happy new year.

WEN: To you too.

AVLON: Now, the state of Georgia is being forced to open a field hospital yet again. So, what happens when so many health care workers are stretched way too thin?

Plus, 140 House Republicans preparing to defy the will of the American people and vote against counting the electoral votes -- what this latest attack on democracy means and how both parties see each other now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:12]

AVLON: Atlanta has become the latest city to open overflow hospitals, as coronavirus cases rise across the country.

CNN correspondent Nick Valencia is at a convention center now that's accepting patients -- Nick.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, 2020 has come and gone, but the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University shows that the pandemic is still very much so raging.

Johns Hopkins says, in the last three days of 2020, over 10,000 Americans died as a result of being infected by the coronavirus. As it stands right now, California seems to be the center of the pandemic.

But things here in Georgia aren't faring much better, Governor Brian Kemp so concerned with the latest winter numbers of the coronavirus, that he's opened up the Georgia World Congress Center to act as a makeshift field hospital, where there will be 60 temporary beds acting as an overflow center for the health systems here that have just been overwhelmed by the rise in cases.

It was yesterday that the governor addressed his concerns about the rising numbers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): And if the people of Georgia will hunker down for a little bit longer, stay vigilant, and do the things we have been talking about, wearing a mask, washing your hands, socially distancing themselves, and following the health guidance and our executive orders, we can all have a safe, happy new year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: This field hospital is expected to be open until at least the end of January. And, earlier, when I spoke to the governor's office, they said they are admitting patients as of today.

Just a quick note here on hospitalizations in Georgia. This morning, about 5,000 Georgians woke up in the hospital, numbers here continuing to spike -- John.

AVLON: Nick Valencia, thank you very much.

Now, from Bob Dylan to Willie Nelson to Johnny Cash, the Mount Rushmore of Americana, America's 39th president forged friendships with some of the greatest artists of all time.

CNN's new film "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President" explores how his unique relationships shaped political battles for years to come.