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Pompeo Remains Loyal To Trump In Final Days Of Presidency; U.S. Nears 400,000 Deaths Due To COVID-19, Most In The World; Azar: Incoming Biden Team Criticizing Vaccine Rollout "So They Can Look Like Heroes When They Come In"; Twitter Temporarily Suspended Rep. Greene For Misinformation. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 18, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: As you pointed out, he has been a really tried and true soldier of President Trump's since the beginning. He came into the administration as the director of the CIA. He has stayed on as the Secretary of State. And he has at times been silent when the President has gone after U.S. diplomats morale in the State Department, as a result of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has plummeted. But what the Secretary has done is really remained a close relationship with President Trump.

Just last week, when President Trump was being impeached by the House for the second time, Secretary Pompeo was tweeting, suggesting that President Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. So that is really a big part of his legacy, you know, remaining lockstep with the President, even when there have been issues at home that have impacted the U.S. diplomatic corps.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Right. The President incited insurrection at the United States Capitol. I don't think he get the Nobel Peace Prize for that. That is truly alternative facts from beginning to end.

And Toluse, for the Vice President, I want to read you, this is from Amy Walter, of The Cook Political Report in one of her columns. "When you have people running through the Capitol saying hang Mike Pence, you don't have so much to lose and saying, "I'm going to work with the incoming administration"." But yet we can't be sure about that. That is the interesting you would, Mike Pence has legitimate anger at his boss, and that those people who were storming the Capitol looking for him, and yet he thinks he has to be careful.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, his life was put in danger as a result of this insurrection. And these rioters came pretty close to actually getting to the place where Mike Pence was. But now he has to think about his political life, and that is in a precarious state as well, because if he breaks with President Trump, he does not have much of a future within the current state of the Republican Party. There have been very few Republicans that have been able to break with President Trump and have any kind of national platform, a national profile. And that's why you've seen a number of different Republicans who are ambitious, who are looking at having a potential run in 2024 for president or even further down the road.

They have been the ones that have been most willing to abide by President Trump's false claims of election interference, tried to overturn the results of the election. And Mike Pence realizes that he's in limbo that he has found himself on the outs with the Trump base. And if he does that, he's going to have a very tough time trying to chart a political path forward in 2024 or beyond. So he is in a very tough spot. And as he's been close to President Trump over the past four years, that does not seem to be enough with President Trump not endorsing him, not supporting him, saying that he has not shown the type of political courage that he needs. And that is a death knell for his political career in the Republican Party, as it currently is constituted as the party of Trump.

KING: That next chapter starts 48 hours from now as the Biden inauguration plays out. We will watch them both, the Vice President of the United States right now, Mike Pence, and the soon to be former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was well.

Kylie and Toluse, grateful for the reporting and the insights.

Up next for us, which states are doing the best job in getting the vaccinations out and what Secretary Azar saying about the sluggish COVID vaccine rollout.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:37:44]

KING: The United States will soon hit another stunningly sad COVID milestone, 400,000 people dead from coronavirus. More than half, 60 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the United States have been reported get this since Election Day. And the incoming Biden demonstration is warning this crisis likely to get worse before vaccines can make it better.

Let's take a look at the latest numbers. They're actually interesting when you take a look this map looks favorable at first glance. Green means trending down, 35 states reporting fewer new coronavirus infections right now compared to a week ago. 35 of the 50 states, only four heading up, 11 holding steady. So that 35 heading down that is an encouraging number. The hard part is, what makes it difficult is, you have to remember those states are heading down from a horrific point, the very high spiking cases.

But new cases are down 11 percent from week -- from one week ago. The question is, are we plateauing and maybe starting to come down or is this temporary? That's what we will see in the days and weeks ahead. But you do see here Sunday, 177,980 new infections reported, that is down, that's down here below 200,000 after these horrific days in December and January. So let's hope, let's hope there's a plateau. That's a terrible spot to plateau at but you have to plateau before you can come down.

As you look as we noted, we will soon hit. Yesterday, we were at 397,600. At the end of Sunday, you see the numbers on your screen, 397,600 and counting, 400,000 total deaths from COVID in the near future, sadly, here. If you walk through these hospitalizations, you need this number to go down. There's some evidence it's coming down a little. The peak was 132,000 back on the day of the insurrection, January 6. `124,000 Americans, 387, 124,387 hospitalized as of yesterday.

Again, the goal is get that number down, let's hope. Sometimes the numbers are down over the weekend so let's watch the week ahead. Hopefully, a plateau will begin into a decline. If you look at the vaccine numbers, this is the hope, get the vaccines out more quickly and this has been a problem. More than 31 million doses distributed but only 12.2 million doses, 12.3 million doses. If you round up, actually shots in arm. So states have to do a better job getting them off the shelves and to patients.

If you look at some of the states, these nine states plus the District of Columbia, at least 50 percent or more. The doses distributed have been administered. So Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, the Dakotas, Texas, West Virginia and D.C. doing a good job. They get the doses, they get them off the shelves, they get them into arms.

[12:40:09]

Two states under 25 percent of the doses distributed have been administered in Alabama and Georgia clearly officials there, I need to work on the plan to get those doses that they have in stock, get them into arms. Now the Biden administration says the Trump team has messed this up and they will reboot the vaccination rollout on day one. The head of the Trump's Health and Human Services Department says it's not our fault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX AZAR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: This is a concerted effort by the new team to down talk where things are so they can look like heroes when they come in and just carry forward the momentum that we have established. We're over 900,000 vaccinations administered per day. Let me give you an example. This whole President-elect Biden and we'll have 100 million shots in arms by the end of April, the first 100 days. We will have distributed 250 million doses of vaccine by the end of April. If they've only done 100 million vaccinations by then, it will be a tragic squandering of the opportunity that we have had (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us to share her expertise and insights, our CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency room physician and researcher at Brown University. Dr. Ranney, it is good to see you. It's great to see you. I wish the numbers were better. When you hear Secretary Azar, I'm really not interested in the blame game, but sorting through who's telling the truth does help as we try to figure out what can the Biden team do on day one to accelerate this vaccine rollout.

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: The Biden team has a tremendous mess to sort out. This feels like the PPE crisis all over again. I know I was with you in early March, talking about the challenges in getting personal protective equipment for front line providers. It's the same thing. We don't even know how many doses are being held in reserve by the federal government right now.

You know, one day, they say they're going to release all of them, the next day they say, oops, we made a mistake, there aren't actually any left. So, the Biden administration is going to have to come in and figure out what they have, create a standard playbook for states based on those states that have done a good job of getting shots in arms, and then fund those logistics. Get the pharmacists and the community clinics and the volunteers and the public messaging campaigns up and going so that we can put a shot in the arm of this vaccination effort. Our country cannot afford to wait and to mess this up any longer.

KING: So walk through what you see is most imperative on day one. It's obviously going to take a few days, if not a few weeks, for the new President to get his team in place. So what can you do? Is there anything you can do on day one and day two? And as you see, best practices in states, are there thing state should be doing while they wait before team Biden can get its act together?

RANNEY: So I think Team Biden already has a very strong team in place of great scientists, great logistics experts, folks ranging from Andy Slavitt, to Mike Osterholm, to Celine Gounder, to Marcella Nunez- Smith. They've got the team there. The first thing they need to do is, again, figure out how many doses are available and figure out how to get them distributed. Second, create that playbook for states. And third, work on the public messaging campaign. And that is something that will start happening on day one.

We've already seen President-elect Biden and Dr. Biden receive shots on camera, that's essential. They're going to engage black and Latino, physicians and other health care workers to help message to our most at risk communities to increase the uptake of vaccines. And then those strategies that have worked, it's about using pharmacies. It's about setting up community vaccination clinics. It's about making sure that we're not throwing out doses because we're trying to be so perfectionist in who gets the next shot, that we waste these life- saving doses of vaccine. Those are things that they can start doing on Wednesday, but that as you say, are going to take a few weeks, to maybe even a month or so to really see effect.

KING: Dr. Ranney, grateful for your time and your insights and we will keep in touch as we have to change less than 48 hours from now, the new team will be in charge. And we'll watch to see how the changes take place. Grateful for your insights today.

And up next for us, the next Trump chapter in the role of the QAnon conspiracy in the new GOP.

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[12:48:42]

KING: President Trump came to Washington four years ago with a Republican House and a Republican Senate. He leaves with Democrats in charge at the White House and at both chambers of Congress and he leaves with Republicans in a very public fight over Trump's future role in the party. Shoving him to the sidelines will be no easy task. The President received 74 million votes in the November election. And his conspiracy theories and lies now have deep roots in the GOP. Just two examples, first-term Republicans, two of them are QAnon adherence, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN's Michael Warren and Donie O'Sullivan. And, Michael, I want to start with you. You have a fabulous piece up on our CNN politics site. I urge everybody to read it about this tug of war, this debate in the Republican Party, about lies, about conspiracy theories, about groups like QAnon. On the one hand, you have people like Ben Sasse, this conservative senator from Nebraska saying they're a cancer and they need to be shoved to the sidelines.

But the President of the United States, even after the insurrection at the Capitol, tells this to Jonathan Swan of Axios. "You know, people say they're into all kinds of bad things and say all kinds of terrible things about them. But, you know, my understanding is they basically are just people who want good government." That's still the President's view of the QAnon movement.

MICHAEL WARREN, CNN REPORTER: Well, and that really helps us understand exactly how this movement how sort of broad conspiracy theory, ideas have wormed their way into the Republican Party. It begins with President Trump and him really giving a wink, a nod and many times a lot more than that to these folks, that's where it began.

[12:50:14]

And there was a sort of calculation by party leaders, folks in the House and the Senate to sort of play footsie a little bit with adherence to this movement. Because there were votes, there were votes to be gotten and there was a new constituency, potentially, for the Republican Party.

The problem now that Republicans find themselves in is those folks now have a seat at the table, and they're going to be wanting things. This is a discussion that's going on. I talked with former and current members of Congress who say they're really concerned, Republicans, really concerned and think leadership needs to do something about this and make an example of supporters of this that are in the ranks. And, of course, were behind a lot of the insurrection and the attack on January 6.

KING: And Donie, you spend a ton of time on how this works, the QAnon and the followers, they echo the President's lies and conspiracies. He often echoes their lies and conspiracies. With the President knocked off Twitter, many other accounts knocked off the social media platforms. In the Washington Post today, it says online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent, after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies last week, that research from Zignal Labs. So if you take away the megaphone, you can reduce the spread of the misinformation. DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, that's right, John. And look, I mean, you're a numbers guy to put a precise figure on this is almost impossible, but Zignal Labs, a very well respected organization with this estimate. And you're right, I mean, you know, Twitter last week, cut the -- head off the snake. And so much of this misinformation is coming top down. So, if you shut down President Trump's account, you will see less misinformation, at least for some time online.

But the challenges still persist. And we just have new reporting in the past few minutes, that on Facebook, the tech transparency project, a watchdog, a tech watchdog group have found posts since the insurrection on January 6, praising or calling for more violence on Facebook. I want to show you some of them. One of them reads, patriots January 20th, 2021 Inauguration Day is your Tiananmen Square moment. And other talks about joining a militia wars are one with guns.

So this stuff is still circulating on Facebook. Shutting down President Trump isn't going to solve the problem. I will say at least Facebook has a team. Once we flagged this to Facebook, they took it down, they are working on taking down other tracks like this. Facebook has a team that works on this stuff. Other platforms that now many Trump supporters and far-right extremists are embracing darker corners of the internet, have no rules and don't have teams like this. And that could be, John, a recipe for radicalization.

And so, Michael, we're in one of the big conundrums, challenges of the moment in the sense that you can get it and I know people are going to protest when I say this, but you can understand it when Twitter shuts down the President, when Twitter shuts down these other accounts after we saw something like the violent, deadly, Capitol insurrection. But then there is a -- when you lift your head, there's a longer term First Amendment, right? And so where do you draw the line, right?

And Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon Congresswoman, she was just suspended briefly, and she's back on Twitter and says, "Dear @Twitter, contrary to how highly you think of yourself and your moral platitude, you are not the judge of humanity. God is." So in the here and now, you do have suspensions, you do have bans on the President of United States and others. But then you have this big debate about how do you handle this in the long term?

WARREN: Right. Well look, good Twitter, big tech, as conservatives like to call it as an institution, but sort of the parties. And this is really where a lot of sort of Republican Party leaders, Republican people who care about the party's future are looking to their leaders, and looking for some kind of institutional movement here. There is a precedent for this, a very recent precedent, in fact. When the House Republican Conference strict Steve King, the former -- now former Iowa Congressman of his committee assignments, because of some white nationalist ideas and remarks that seeking make. So there is a recent precedent for this, and this is something that a lot of Republicans are saying we have the mechanisms to sort of isolate this kind of thinking within our party, so it's not a part of our party.

The question really then comes down to what do leaders do, what do leaders do to step up and say something? As long as President Trump was President, they seemed really unwilling to do that. I think there's a real question is, once he leaves office, does that change?

KING: Perhaps it'll be -- it's never an easy conversation. Perhaps it'll be a less difficult conversation and debate to sort through when President Trump is out of the Oval Office and onto the sidelines. Michael Warren, Donie O'Sullivan, grateful for the important reporting and insights.

Coming up next for us, Speaker Pelosi in a fight now with the outgoing Trump administration over a key national security post.

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[12:59:28]

KING: There's a new salvo this hour and a final days, even final hours fight over a key intelligence post and who the outgoing President wants to put in that job. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sending a letter to the Acting Defense Secretary urging him to stop what she calls a, quote, improper process of installing Michael Ellis as the National Security Agency's General Counsel. Ellis previously worked for Congressman Devin Nunes and as a National Security Council lawyer in the Trump White House.

Back in those days, he refused to testify in the Ukraine impeachment inquiry. Pelosi and other Democrats say Ellis is unqualified for this job and that his appointment is an attempt to gum up the works for the incoming Biden administration.

That's it for us on this day. I hope to see you back at this hour tomorrow. Very busy news day in Washington, stay with us. Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage right now. Have a good day.