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60 Percent of U.S. Cases have been Reported Since Election Day; Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) Says, QAnon is Destroying the GOP from Within; Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to Deliver Impeachment Article to Senate this Week. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired January 18, 2021 - 11:30   ET

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

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: A new sign just this morning of the speed and scale of the pandemic in the United States right now. 60 percent of all infections here have been reported since Election Day. That reality as the U.S. is about to hit something that had been unthinkable, 400,000 reported deaths from coronavirus in America. We could hit that marker today with the expectation that the U.S. will hit half a million deaths in the next month.

President-elect Joe Biden's incoming chief of staff and the incoming CDC director put it this way this weekend.

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RON KLAIN, INCOMING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: The virus is going to get worse before it gets better. I certainly expect we will hit 500,000 deaths sometime in the month of February.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR NOMINEE: We still yet haven't seen the ramifications of what happened from the holiday travel, from holiday gathering in terms of high rates of hospitalizations and the deaths thereafter. So, yes, I think we still have some dark weeks ahead.

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BOLDUAN: And joining me now is Dr. Celine Gounder, former Assistant New York City Health Commissioner and a member of Joe Biden's COVID Advisory Board. It is good to see you again, Doctor. Thank you for being here.

So, we just heard from the incoming chief of staff and the incoming CDC director both saying it's going to get worse before it gets better, but how much worse and for how long, do you think?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, MEMBER OF BIDEN-HARRIS TRANSITION COVID ADVISORY BOARD: Kate, so much of this is in our control. So we're now in wave number five. Wave number one was the spring, then you had the southern states in the summer, then as temperatures got cooler in the fall, that was wave number three, and then Thanksgiving, number four, and Christmas and the New Year's holiday, number five.

So much of this is in our control. Many of us decided to travel and visit family and friends over the holiday. Many of us did so indoors without masks and, unfortunately, what we're seeing right now is the result of the Christmas and New Year's holiday.

But we can still change our behavior. We can still choose to follow the public health recommendations to wear a mask, to social distance, to try as much as possible to stay to our household bubbles to spend more times outdoors than indoors and if you're going to be indoors in a well-ventilated space.

It is going to take time to get everybody vaccinated, and in the meantime, these are our best tools to control the spread.

BOLDUAN: I want to ask you about the vaccine, because when it comes to vaccine distribution, there is a ton of confusion over how many doses are available, how many have been administers, and that is not just me confused, that's is Dr. Leana Wen as well.

I want to play for you how she put it this morning.

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DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I just don't understand how no one is able to give a straight answer to the question of how many doses are out there that are ready to be distributed and at what point. There needs to be a straightforward public accounting of this. Someone needs to know the answer of how many doses are ready to be distributed so states.

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BOLDUAN: Doctor, do you have the answer to that?

GOUNDER: I'm not sure that any of us has the full answer to that yet in part because we won't have all of the information until after inauguration. We have a preview but not everything.

I really do hope though that this new administration is a lot more transparent with that kind of information, just like we have a CDC dashboard that shows us cases and deaths and testing and testing results. I would hope that we also have added to that a dashboard that shows the supply, what is coming down the pipeline in terms of manufacturing, where the doses have been administered and to whom, including a breakdown by age and gender and race. So, hopefully, we do get a lot more transparency into this before too long here.

BOLDUAN: Do you think it is a transparency issue here? Because I'm confused why -- someone has got to know this information. If not, that is a horrifying sign.

GOUNDER: Yes, I do think there are those who have the access to that information. There are a few different systems, for example, the Tiberius System that the U.S. government has been using to track vaccine distribution. The Biden team only very recently got access to that and we won't have full access until after Biden takes office.

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BOLDUAN: Ron Klain also said that the administration's vaccine rollout is a mess. Are you concerned knowing that, and what we just discussed, are you concerned that the 100 million shots in the first 100 days may not be possible?

GOUNDER: The president-elect is very committed to making sure that we get 100 million shots into Americans in his first 100 days in office. Right now, we're losing about 4,000 Americans to coronavirus every day. And if we allow things to go at this pace, we're looking at doubling the death toll between now and his first 100 days in office.

So he does have a very robust, well-funded plan on the table to get this done. We just need Congress to work with us on getting that bill passed.

BOLDUAN: That is a big ask considering where we are right now. Thank you so much, Doctor, for coming in.

Coming up for us, the QAnon conspiracy theory has seeped from the dark corners of the internet to the halls of Congress. Now, Republican Senator Ben Sasse, he says, if Republicans don't reject it outright, right now, it will destroy the Republican Party.

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BOLDUAN: We are in the final 48 hours of the Donald Trump presidency. And though Trump is on his way out, the dangerous conspiracy theories he has fueled before and during his time in office will not be departing with him. Look no further than January 6th for evidence, where symbols of the QAnon conspiracy movement and digital cult were everywhere.

Leading Republican Senator Ben Sasse to write a piece about this for The Atlantic titled, QAnon is destroying the GOP from within. Sasse says his party now faces a critical choice, writing this in part, until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon. They can't. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them.

Joining me right now is Mike Rothschild. He's a journalist who is currently writing a book about QAnon. Mike, thanks for being here.

I know a lot of folks have been leaning on you because you have been following QAnon for a very long time. What do you think of the choice that Ben Sasse warns of and lays out here?

MIKE ROTHSCHILD, JOURNALIST WRITING BOOK ON QANON: I think it is about two and a half years too late. If the Q shaman is busting into the U.S. Capitol and defacing the Senate's desk, QAnon is already part of the fabric of the GOP. It is way too late. BOLDUAN: It's a great point. And, look, we saw signs and T-shirts for QAnon all over the place, including that guy, the shaman, as the mob descended on the Capitol on January 6th. Have you figured out in your research what the draw is, what type of people fall prey to this, these lies, these conspiracy theories and why this?

ROTHSCHILD: Sure. The people who fall prey to QAnon are everyone. It could be anybody. Anybody looking for an easy answer to a complex problem, anybody looking for a villain to pin their own personal problems on, anybody looking for secret knowledge who wants to feel special and important and like they know something that other people don't, that is who believes in Q. It's everybody, it's anybody. No one is above believing in things like this.

BOLDUAN: QAnon predictions have proven obviously wrong all over the place, and it is all lies. I can't overstate that. I want to read how Kevin Roose of The New York Times described what Q has fed people about the election. This was right after the election.

For years, they had been assured that Mr. Trump would win re-election in a landslide and spend his second term vanquishing the deep state and bringing the cabal's leaders to justice. Q told them to trust the plan.

And so now, when we're here today, Mike, the reaction from Q followers is what? Just continued blind faith?

ROTHSCHILD: Continue believing that everything is going to be just fine. Because what else can you do? You've already spent years believing in this mythology, you've push add way all of the people in your real life who love you, you're burned your boats, you can't go back, so you continue to believe. You continue to push more emotional investment into this movement because you've gotten nothing else left. It has to come true. It has to be real. Otherwise, you were wrong and nobody wants to admit that they were wrong.

BOLDUAN: But a lot of us admit we're wrong all of the time, Mike. This is what -- I'm baffled by -- is this a failure of people's ability to think critically anymore? I mean, The New York Times, I know you recited in the piece, did a long profile on just one woman in New York City who is a big QAnon follower and posts all of the time and talks about how she's been shunned by neighbors and friends and family. But still is it just a failure of people's ability to use the critical thinking part of their brain?

ROTHSCHILD: I think it is part of that. But it is also you have talked yourself into believing this thing that other people not only believe but mock you for believing. And if you admit to yourself that you were wrong, you are opening yourself up to the mockery and the derision and that you did all of these things and you sacrificed so much in your life and it was all for nothing.

[11:45:10]

That is a very sobering moment in people's lives and most of us just aren't prepared to do that. We're not prepared to throw away months or years of our lives and our relationships and our career over this hunch because we just don't want to waste it all this time.

BOLDUAN: There is so many bigger questions then of what people need to do about it and what Joe Biden or any leader can do to undo this at the point, as you said, when the QAnon shaman is standing and taking over the Senate chamber, it is years too late for a party to start shunning it now.

Mike, thank you very much. I sincerely look forward to your book.

ROTHSCHILD: I'm happy to be here.

BOLDUAN: Thank you.

Coming up for us, as the Senate prepares for the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, some Senate Republicans are floating a new argument against it.

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BOLDUAN: One of the many big questions this week is when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will deliver the article of impeachment to the Senate which would then trigger the trial to begin in the Senate. We don't know when that will happen. But we are seeing one possible Republican argument emerging against a Senate conviction now. We don't have the power. We can't.

Look no further than Donald Trump's chief ally remaining in the Senate, Lindsey Graham. Senator Graham telling The Wall Street Journal this, impeaching a president after leaving office, I think, is unconstitutional. It's never been done before for a reason, it sets up a never-ending retribution.

Joining me right now is Ambassador Norm Eisen, CNN Legal Analyst, who was counsel for Democrats during the first Trump impeachment.

So, Ambassador, I'm curious what you think about this, because you see this kind of movement to a strategy of opposing conviction, saying that they don't have the power or the jurisdiction to impeach Trump after he lives office, once he is a private citizen. You don't agree with it, but why?

NORMAN EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Kate, thanks for having me back on the program. Like so much else that Trump and his allies have argued, this is legal nonsense. The precedents are well established that an official can be impeached even after they leave office. There is the 18th century example, the Blunt case, the 19th century example, the Belknap case.

And the reason for that, Kate, is that with the impeachment conviction comes the power of disqualification. Of course, if you have a president who does a terrible thing at the end of his term, Congress needs to address whether he should be disqualified from running again. While those earlier cases did not address a presidential impeachment trial, the principle is the same, and, of course, this is the United States where the same rules apply to presidents and to all.

So it's completely false.

BOLDUAN: And it's a technical argument, right, again impeachment. It would, I guess, allow Republicans to try to thread something of a needle, right, voting against Trump's conviction without having to defend his actions in all of this?

EISEN: Kate, it's going to fail because, ultimately, these questions are decided by a majority vote of the Senate. I saw that when I was sitting on the Senate floor as counsel in the previous impeachment, and the group of those who were concerned by Trump have the majority. That's probably not just Democrats, although there will be 51 democratic votes including the vice president sitting in the chair as the president of the Senate.

There is also Republicans who are concerned by this conduct and who want to be able to consider whether Donald Trump should be disqualified from running again. He should be.

BOLDUAN: I want to ask you about presidential pardons as well, Ambassador. They are saying to expect something like 100 pardons expected tomorrow. And The New York Times is reporting that some of Trump's allies are cashing in on this, charging people to lobby the president on their behalf. One man telling The New York Times that he was told Rudy Giuliani would help him get a pardon for $2 million. How is this legal?

EISEN: Kate, I don't think it is legal to have quid pro quo pardons, to have pardons in exchange for bribes. Look, the pardon power is one of the broadest powers under the Constitution. It's rooted in the old English monarchical power of the king to pardon anyone. Well, we're a government of laws. There must be some limits on that. The president couldn't issue a pardon saying, I'm going to pardon all the white people involved in the riot, a racially discriminatory pardon.

I don't believe he can take bribes to issue a pardon, and that's what some of these corrupt pardons start to look like. A constitutional power has to be exercised constitutionally. There must be some outer limits. It looks like Donald Trump is preparing to test what those might be.

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If he goes too far, you can expect that to be litigated in the courts, as so many other things have been. We don't know the answer, but there must be some limits.

BOLDUAN: Good question. He's pushed the limit in every aspect, might as well push it one more time as he's on his way out the door.

Ambassador, thank you very much, I appreciate it.

Coming up for us, new details about the president's final hours in office, as I was just discussing with the ambassador, a flurry, a flood, a deluge of pardons expected, and also how he wants to leave the White House.

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