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Pfizer: Early Analysis Shows Trial Vaccine More than 90% Effective; Ben Carson Tests Positive for COVID-19; Leon Panetta, Former Defense Secretary & Former CIA Director, Discusses Trump Firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper; Attorney Daryl Bristow Discusses Trump's Election Fraud Claims; CDC Study: One in 11 COVID-19 Patients Readmitted to the Hospital. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 09, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALBERT BOURLA, CHAIRMAN & CEO, PFIZER: Right now they have disclosed to us only the efficacy in non-previously infected patients who have a second primary points.

But is taking also people -- all people irrelative if they were previously infected.

We have secondary points about severe disease. We also secondary points about efficacy at 14 days.

So we will know a lot of this information when the study is complete and, of course, when we submit data to the FDA.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There are three ingredients you've talked about in order for this vaccine to work.

You have to show it's effective. We've talked about that. Safety data, you'll have a better idea by the end of this month. And obviously, people have to get it.

Two issues there. One is distribution of the vaccine.

BOURLA: Yes.

GUPTA: And then the second is trust, I guess, of the vaccine.

When you talk about manufacturing and distribution, I read your comments. I think you said there's hundreds of thousands of doses already manufactured. Maybe tens of millions by the end of the year, 100 million by march.

Who gets them?

BOURLA: We are in a good situation of 50 million doses this year globally. I believe we are in a very, very good situation with 1.3 billion doses globally again next year. Who will get this vaccine, we have two separate manufacturing lines.

One is in the U.S. that involves manufacturing sites in St. Louis, in October (ph), in Massachusetts, and in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Those we're introducing mainly for North America.

And then we have a second one. But there's manufacturing sites in Germany and in Belgium. And they were producing for the rest of the world.

We're hoping that other vaccines will become successful as well, because, as I said, the demand will be much higher than we can ever produce.

But also, given the very, very high levels of efficacy of this vaccine, which frankly surprised me how high the efficacy is, we are revisiting plans now to see how much more, if any, we can produce.

GUPTA: Should we read anything into the fact that this got announced right after the election?

BOURLA: Yes. The science brought it exactly this time. We announced it the moment we learned about it.

And I said multiple times that the election for us is an artificial timeline.

I was predicting this would happen before the end of October. Eventually, it happened a week later. Because this is when science brought us to us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And Sanjay is joining us now.

Sanjay, he seems extremely confident about this, the CEO of Pfizer does. Do you agree that this could be a game changer for the pandemic?

GUPTA: I think, on the whole, if everything sort of plays out the way that he's forecasting it -- and some of that is a forecast, Brianna -- then I think it could be significant.

The idea that a vaccine would be 90 percent effective in terms of preventing people from getting infected is a big deal when you're thinking about the trajectory of this pandemic right now.

The point I was trying to raise with him, Brianna, is the vast majority of people who get this do recover, right, 80 percent have minimal or no symptoms.

The real question is: Does this vaccine help prevent the consequential disease in people who are more vulnerable? Can it reduce the severity of disease as well to help save lives?

We don't have that data yet. We still don't have all the safety data yet. There's going to be these huge manufacturing challenges. If all of that pans out, I mean, this would be a significant tool.

KEILAR: He says maybe later this month. It's like we want this information now. Right? It's so crucial to get this information.

I also, Sanjay, wanted to ask you about the latest administration official who tested positive, which is Housing Secretary Ben Carson. Notable, because he's a renowned physician.

He attended the election night party for White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. And nearly every other attendee was not wearing a mask. And Meadows, of course, has since tested positive.

What do you make of this, this White House, this administration still not following CDC guidelines and the fact that you have a physician who isn't?

GUPTA: Yes. You know, I've known Ben Carson for a long time. He's a neurosurgeon. I'm a neurosurgeon. I've known him for my career. We actually trained at the same place. Him ahead of me, but still we have known each other.

I was very surprised for that reason, Brianna. I mean, as a medical person, you understand this virus better. You understand the purpose and the benefits of wearing a mask.

I think it just goes to show just how strong that message is within the White House.

I guarantee you Ben Carson knows the right thing to do. It's not that he's not educated about this. He just is not doing it.

He knows he'll be sending a message by not doing it because he is a widely regarded figures, as you point out.

I was surprised by it in one way, as someone I've known for 20 years, Ben Carson.

[14:35:02]

But not surprised by it, because the vortex inside the White House is so powerful towards this message of not doing the right thing with masks.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is.

Sanjay, thank you so much for sharing that interview with us.

GUPTA: You've got it. Thank you.

KEILAR: We have much more on our breaking news. Next, President Trump firing his defense secretary just 48 hours after officially losing the election. I'll be speaking to President Obama's former defense secretary, Leon Panetta, here in moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KEILAR: We have more now on our breaking news. Two days after the election was called for Joe Biden, President Trump firing his defense secretary, Mark Esper, and doing this with a tweet.

I want to bring in former defense secretary, Leon Panetta, to talk about this. He is also a former CIA director and former White House chief of staff.

What does this mean for the country? It's extremely unusual for this to be -- maybe some tinkering after a reelection win. But firing the defense secretary right after an election that a president lost.

[14:40:07]

What does this mean for the country?

LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY & FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Well, it's just confirmation that the president is going to continue to keep the country in turmoil.

He's not going to leave office gracefully. He's going to leave the office of the presidency in an ugly fashion.

I think this is further proof that he's going to go after people for one reason or another. This is probably the beginning of a lot of tweets for people that he doesn't like within his own administration.

But the problem is it puts the Pentagon in a period of uncertainty at a time when it's dealing with COVID-19, the distribution of the vaccine.

We're dealing with challenges in a very dangerous world. And we're also dealing with issues here at home.

This is not a good time to fire the secretary of defense in this period of transition.

KEILAR: I think of it as in between someone getting an eviction notice and being put out. It's like burning the house down or causing damage to the house.

That is something that, even after he is gone, the American people will have to live with. The Biden administration will have to come back from that.

Is this -- I mean, how difficult is that going to be? How much of that will hinder the Biden administration, getting their feet on the ground from the start?

PANETTA: Well, you know, it's just not a smart move at this period.

I mean, the election is over. We know who the winner of the election is. The president continues to fight that, which is unfortunate for the country.

At the same time, it's going to make it difficult to have a smooth transition between his administration and a new administration. It's tough enough under the best of times to try to implement a smooth transition. It just is.

There's a lot of work to be done, a lot of binders to be put together in terms of what's going on in each of the departments and agencies, what is going on in the White House.

It's obvious this administration is not going to cooperate in any way with regard to the transition.

When you get rid of the secretary of defense, who knows what's going on at the Pentagon, knows what's going on with the issues that relate to our national security, and you put somebody else in for this very short period of time, it's just going to make it much more difficult to have a smooth transition, with an issue that is critical, our national security.

Why create that kind of uncertainty at this point in time? I don't get it.

KEILAR: What about -- what does this mean for foreign adversaries, who look at the U.S., see the U.S. in a vulnerable position?

Will they take advantage of that or do you think they'll be deterred from the fact that here, in a couple of months, there will be a president who could come down on them?

PANETTA: Well, it's going to send -- it sends a bad message to our adversaries and to our allies alike.

It just makes clear that the United States of America has a tremendous amount of uncertainty that it's dealing with at this point in time.

I suspect that, in the end, nobody will do anything precipitously, because there's a new administration coming in.

I think they know that a new administration will represent a very different approach in terms of both foreign and military policy. And for that reason, I think that everybody's going to be on hold.

But there are adversaries out there, particularly terrorists, who don't have a high regard for timing or for diplomacy.

Who are, if they're intending to attack our country, this just gives them an added issue to weigh in determining whether or not they're going to strike at America. That makes it a dangerous moment.

And it's just not smart for this president to engage in that kind of bi-play at a moment when this country needs to be strong and needs to send the world a signal that our democracy is functioning and functioning properly.

KEILAR: The CIA director could be at risk. How worried are you about that?

PANETTA: Well, as I said, this could be the beginning of a lot of tweets about kicking out people that for one reason or another he doesn't like.

He may be the only person left who will leave his own administration and White House.

[14:45:07]

But it's just -- it's just vindictive. It's vindictive of a president to do this at this stage when the country is trying to go through a transition to a new administration.

As I said -- you know, it's the last moment where this president could at least show a little grace about the importance of transitioning to a new administration. But instead, he's going to make it ugly to the very end.

KEILAR: Yes.

Secretary Panetta, thank you for coming on.

Next, Trump's campaign manager telling staff the president is, quote, "Still in this fight," as they push ahead with multiple lawsuits.

I'm going to speak to an attorney who was involved in the 2000 recount, who says he hasn't seen any evidence to back up any of the president's baseless claims.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:50:29]

KEILAR: President Trump is digging in. He's refusing to concede to the man who more than 75 million Americans have chosen to replace him in the White House, President-Elect Joe Biden.

Sources telling CNN the Trump campaign plans a messaging list to fuel Trump's baseless claim that the election was stolen from him by rampant voter fraud.

The campaign manager even summoning all staffers for a meeting this morning and telling them the president is "still in this fight."

I want to bring in Houston attorney, Daryl Bristow. He's very familiar with hotly contested elections. He was the lead trial lawyer IN George W. Bush's trial team in the battle over recounting mail-in ballots in two Florida counties in 2000, a battle that he won.

Daryl, thank you for being with us.

You obviously have a very unique perspective as someone who has been though a hotly contested race.

Republicans have filed lawsuits in a handful of states. They have cited improper mail-in voting and/or improper ballot counting procedures.

Judges have already rejected the suits in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia.

Do you think there's any merit to their claims?

DARYL BRISTOW, ATTORNEY: Based on everything I've heard -- and I've tried to follow things a little bit, as you might suspect, looking back 20 years in my own experience.

I see no legitimate claim of the kind of malfeasance that would justify the disenfranchisement of something like 50,000 voters in Pennsylvania, 36,000 in Nevada, 17,000 in Arizona, 10,000 in Georgia.

We were, of course, back at that time, dealing with a vote count that was in the hundreds difference and not the thousands, and one state, not five states -- four states.

KEILAR: And you were also trying to get military ballots counted. This is one of the differences that we have seen, for instance, when it comes to what President Trump and his allies are arguing for.

We have seen people in the military and their families, who perhaps they live in one state, but they vote in their home state of record, which is completely acceptable.

And the campaign is trying to get those votes thrown out. Or this idea of ballots, including military ballots that come in after Election Day, they don't want them counted.

Explain to us the difference between what you were going through and what they're arguing for here.

BRISTOW: Well, the military count issue really came up just as I was being asked by Secretary Baker to come down and join the team. Fred Bartlett and some other lawyers kind of handled that matter.

But the long and short was that they were talking about the same thing that we later talked about.

And that is fundamentally, unless you find some significant material irregularity, you do not, after the fact, disenfranchise a voter.

You don't deprive that voter who depended on a system, received instructions from governmental sources about how they should vote, then attempted to follow those rules.

And later say, wait a minute, those rules were either technically wrong, forms were wrong, something we don't like about the system, so you, voter, get disenfranchised.

You've been denied your right to go to the polls on Election Day, relying on a system. That cannot happen.

KEILAR: Daryl Bristow, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you.

Giving us your expertise, having been involved in the recount in 2000, you're one of very few people who can tell us what it means there on the ground.

Thank you, Daryl.

BRISTOW: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Now more than 10 million Americans have now contracted coronavirus since the pandemic began. And the country is setting records daily for the number of new infections.

[14:54:30]

Dr. Anthony Fauci will join CNN live later today on "THE SITUATION ROOM" to discuss how the U.S. can get this under control.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Just in, as the U.S. surpasses 10 million coronavirus cases, a new CDC study reveals how many COVID patients go back into the hospital after their first visit.

Jacqueline Howard has the report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: I'm Jacqueline Howard in Atlanta. A new study from the CDC finds that about one in 11 COVID-19 patients are readmitted to the hospital within just a couple of months.

The study looked at more than 100,000 COVID-19 patients between March and August.

[14:59:53]

Researchers found that patients who are readmitted were more likely to be 65 or older, have a chronic health condition, have been discharged to a nursing home or needed home health care, or they had been hospitalized before their initial COVID-19 hospitalization.

(END VIDEO CLIP)