Return to Transcripts main page

CNN RIGHT NOW

Mike Pompeo: There Will Be Smooth Transition To Second Trump Administration; Biden Weighs Legal Option As Trump Threatens Transfer Of Power; Supreme Court Signals Bulk Of Obamacare May Survive Challenge; McConnell, Top Republicans Back Trump's Refusal To Concede; Biden Speaks As Supreme Court Considers Fate Of Obamacare. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired November 10, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is the State Department currently preparing to engage with the Biden transition team and if not, at what point does it delay, hamper a smooth transition or pose a risk to national security?

MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration. All right? We're ready. The world is watching what's taking place here. We're going to count all the votes. When the process is complete, there'll be electors selected.

There's a process. The Constitution lays it out pretty clearly. The world should have every confidence that the transition necessary to make sure that the State Department is functional today, successful today, and successful with a president who's in office on January 20th, a minute after noon, will also be successful.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So you believe there's widespread voter fraud? With the reports that we're getting from Pennsylvania, from Michigan showing vote totals in massive leads or significant leads with 99 percent reporting are going to be overturned and that the United States failed to conduct a fraudulent-free election?

POMPEO: Rich, I'm the secretary of State. I'm getting calls from all across the world. These people are watching our election. They understand that we have a legal process. They understand that this takes time. Right, took us 37-plus days in an election back in 2000.

Conducted a successful transition then. I am very confident that we will count and we must count every legal vote. We must make sure that any vote that wasn't lawful are not be counted, that dilutes your vote if it's done improperly. Got to get that right. And when we get it right, we'll get it right. We're in good shape.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: This, by the way, is no 2000 recount.

I want to bring in CNN National Security Correspondent, Kylie Atwood, who's at the State Department.

I mean, Kylie, what do you see going on here? This is extraordinary for the secretary of State to say this.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It is truly extraordinary. Especially because we know it's virtually statistically impossible for what he's saying to become a reality. He said there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration. We full well know that there should be a transition under way to a Biden administration right now.

And it's important to note, Brianna, that there are national security implications here. This is a department that's going to have to overturn tremendous amounts of information to an incoming team and they are being prevented from doing that right now. I also think it's important to note that the secretary was asked about the credibility of America continuing to call for free and fair elections internationally, and to call for people to step down and accept the realities of votes in other countries, and he was asked if those efforts are undermined by what President Trump is doing here.

You know, contesting these election results based on no evidence. He called that question ridiculous. But it's important to note that my sources tell me, diplomats in other countries, they are concerned about the action being taken by President Trump undermining the work that they are doing internationally.

Now, Secretary Pompeo is very close with President Trump, and he has always been very careful not to get ahead of the president. So in some ways it's not altogether surprising that he wouldn't go any further than what President Trump has said here, but this does really put American diplomats in a very, very challenging position -- Brianna.

KEILAR: I want to bring in our chief political analyst Gloria Borger and our senior legal analyst Laura Coates to talk with us about this.

I mean, Gloria, I think one of the things watching Mitch McConnell, watching some Republicans who have not congratulated Joe Biden, but there's also been this question of, are they just placating Trump as the inevitable takes place? This is something different, though. The secretary of State saying that there will be a transition to a second Trump administration which is not what voters chose.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I was noticing kind of a smirk after he said that, and maybe he thought he was being cute but if he did, he certainly wasn't. I think his statement was reckless. I think it was corrosive. Particularly as the secretary of State. He is the person responsible for representing American values throughout the world, and what he just stood up there and said was, you know, don't worry about this. It's going to be fine. There's going to be a transition to -- to Donald Trump.

You don't -- I don't understand how a secretary of State, and let's just say this right now. We know he has presidential ambition. Let's get that out of the way. We know a lot of these Republicans like Mike Pompeo would like those 70-plus million voters to be on their side. But come on. You are secretary of State and you have not seen fit to even -- to congratulate Joe Biden at this point just because Donald Trump will not let you, because he feels that there is corruption?

[14:05:08]

And, of course, as we all know, and election experts have been saying it. Just understand the margins here, and understand what is going on here. They're trying to placate Donald Trump so he can figure out a way to say that it was stolen from him and that's the only way he lost.

KEILAR: Yes.

BORGER: And he did it with a smile and it was completely discouraging and inappropriate.

KEILAR: Yes. And he's playing fast and loose with the Constitution.

BORGER: Yes.

KEILAR: As he simultaneously tries to hold up the Constitution and hide behind it in a way that he can't, and Laura, we just have to be very clear here even though the secretary of State sidestepped that question, there has been no credible evidence of these voter fraud claims.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. There's been no credible evidence. There's just been an iota of evidence to suggest that there has been widespread voter fraud or that there's any fraud or irregularities such that it would even impact the actual outcome of the popular vote in this country. And what do we look like, to Gloria's point? What do we look like as the United States of America, to talk about free elections and about transition of power when the will of the people dictate it across the globe?

And then from our own breath, from our secretary of State was suggesting that somehow we should be dismissive of that? That there will not be the honoring of what we see right now even in spite of a lack of evidence to suggest that this election was not fair and free? You can't just essentially have a selective approach to how the laws in this country or our democracy is enforced. We have to have an all- encompassing and enveloping approach. And that's one of the disturbing parts of this trend.

You have from Pompeo, you had it from justice -- I mean, Attorney General, excuse me, Barr, who's talking about the idea of undermining a longstanding tradition not to put your thumbs on the scales of the election and weigh in before a certification. And now we have somebody who is the central diplomat, the tie to the United States after a lot of foreign leaders, if you remember, Brianna, over the weekend have already congratulated President-elect Joe Biden.

Now are they all presumed to be fools who have jumped the gun and gotten ahead of their own skis or is this someone trying to undermine the will of the people to stay in power which runs antithetical to our transition of power, our term limits, and our views about the electorate?

KEILAR: Sure does. Laura, Gloria, thank you so much to both of you.

BORGER: Sure.

KEILAR: If you can stand by for me, any moment now we are expecting to hear from President-elect Joe Biden even as Trump and his administration refuse to accept the election results. Biden and his team are not ruling out legal action to force the Trump transition team to cooperate with them. By now that process between the outgoing and incoming administrations should be well under way.

CNN political correspondent Arlette Saenz is in Wilmington, Delaware.

Arlette, tell us what Biden is focusing on today. What is his message?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, President- elect Joe Biden really wants to put health care front and center today as the Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the future of the Affordable Care Act. That law that was a signature initiative of the Obama administration. But while Biden wants to focus on this as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage across the country, it's his transition right now that is under immediate threat.

We will see if Joe Biden will take questions from reporters, and whether he might want to address this holdup that we are currently seeing from the Trump administration as President Trump and his allies have refused to acknowledge Biden's victory. Now the president-elect had told his friends and allies over the weekend that he wanted to give the president and Republicans a bit of space to accept the outcomes of this election, but now they are facing this new dynamic, this new reality, where they are realizing they may need to take a tougher approach, and that includes possibly considering legal actions going forward.

There are a number of things that are currently being held up, technical aspects of this transition process that are critically important. From providing millions of dollars' worth of funding. Also access to view and discuss highly classified information as well as conducting, starting those background checks that are needed for some of these cabinet appointments that they will be making in the coming months.

So there is a lot of crucial work that is currently basically in limbo as they are waiting for the Trump administration to acknowledge Biden's victory. So we will see if the president-elect decides to go ahead and be more forceful in his own response, as parts of his transition process are on hold. Biden is continuing on with his official work. He's held phone calls today with the leaders, several key foreign allies including the leaders of the U.K. and France, as well as Ireland.

[14:10:02]

So he's trying to move forward with his work. You've seen him talk about his coronavirus response, but there are those critical aspects of the transition that are currently being held up.

KEILAR: They're so important. Arlette, thank you so much, from Wilmington, Delaware, for us.

As she mentioned, the Supreme Court just wrapped oral arguments that could determine the future of the Affordable Care Act. The core question is whether the court can invalidate the entire law if it finds that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. The Trump administration and many Republican-led states want it all thrown out. Chief Justice John Roberts is arguing Congress had their chance to do that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT: I think it's hard for you to argue that Congress intended the entire act to fall if the mandate was struck down, when the same Congress that lowered the penalty to zero did not even try to repeal the rest of the act. I think frankly that they wanted the court to do that, but that's not our job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I want to bring in CNN's Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue to talk about this.

And, Ariane, it sounds like the chief justice doesn't want to toss the entire thing out or at least he is challenging lawyers on that. Where do the other justices appear to land?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT CORRESPONDENT: Right, Brianna. You're absolutely right. Because basically what he was saying is even if you throw out the individual mandate or other provisions, you cannot invalidate. The court should not invalidate the entire sprawling 900-page law and critically, Brett Kavanaugh seemed to suggest the same thing. And let me step back a little bit, just to explain why that's so important. Because remember in 2012 it was Roberts who saved Obamacare and he did so under Congress' taxing power.

But then five years later Congress moved to bring that tax penalty down to zero. So critics, longtime critics of the law including the Trump administration and these Republican-led states basically went to court and said you've gotten rid of the legal underpinning of the individual mandate and the rest of the law, the entire thing, can't stand without it. And that's critical because it would mean protections for people with pre-existing conditions would go away, as well as the expansion of Medicaid.

And what was interesting to see is Justice Amy Coney Barrett, right, Trump's nominee. And she also seems to stress this point. Now what did Congress mean to do in 2017? And she seemed to suggest that she didn't think it meant to throw out the entire law. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JUSTICE AMY CONEY BARRETT, U.S. SUPREME COURT: What should we make of the fact that Congress didn't repeal the provision? I mean, you said earlier repeal and then you corrected yourself and said, zeroed out. I mean, you're asking us to treat it as if it's functionally has been repealed but that's not what Congress did. Does that matter?

MICHAEL MONGAN, CALIFORNIA SOLICITOR GENERAL: Your honor, I think Congress understood how this court had construed 5000A as a choice and it understood that it would make the provision effectively an operative to zero out the tax and that was a reasonable thing for it to do. Obviously, it was operating under reconciliation procedures that allowed it to make the change compliant with the Byrd rule and CBO has told it that there was no material difference between repealing the provision and zeroing out the tax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DE VOGUE: See, that what Barrett's going at is what did Congress mean to do? And her vote will be critical, Brianna, as well as the votes of his other nominees, Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch.

KEILAR: I didn't think we'd have to talk about budget reconciliation again after the passage of Obamacare, but here we are. So this could really be, Ariane, the last big argument that the Trump administration makes in the high court, and it doesn't appear to be going well. What do you think?

DE VOGUE: Well, for sure it's the last big blockbuster case. Right? This is the most important case of the term, and you'll remember in the early days of this challenge, the Trump administration didn't argue quite this broadly. It said, OK, the individual mandate should go, some other provisions. But then when a district court struck down the entire law, it emboldened the Trump administration, they came back to court.

And in court today, acting solicitor general, Jeff Wall, he basically said, you know, it's up to that political branches to fix this. The court shouldn't step in and fix it and it should invalidate the whole thing. But that argument really didn't seem to be sitting well with several of the justices.

KEILAR: All right, Ariane. Thank you so much, Ariane de Vogue, for taking us through that.

Any moment now President-elect Joe Biden will be speaking live about the Affordable Care Act. We're going to bring that to you. Plus a grim reminder of the surging coronavirus cases nationwide. Officials in El Paso, Texas, are calling in for additional mobile morgues.

And later I'm going to speak to the head of the Pfizer vaccine trial in upstate New York. He's going to explain how it works and when we might be able to get it.

[14:15:04]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KEILAR: Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell not accepting the results of the election, at least not yet, and fueling the president's denial that he lost with these extraordinary comments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Until the electoral college votes, anyone who's running for office can exhaust concerns about counting in any court of appropriate jurisdiction. That's not unusual. It should not be alarming. At some point here we'll find out finally who was certified in each of these states, and the electoral college will determine the winner and that person will be sworn in on January 20th. No reason for alarm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:20:17]

KEILAR: I want to bring in Dana Bash to talk about this.

Dana, he says twice no reason for alarm or it's not alarming, although it is alarming. But maybe you can explain to us what McConnell's calculus is here as he says this.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He's trying to keep people calm as he tries to keep the president calm. So he's got kind of two reasons for saying what he said and when I say keep the president calm, what I mean by that is mean by that is keep the president from abandoning all kinds of protocols even more than he has now. But even more specifically, let's just talk turkey to quote you from earlier here, in your program, Bri.

What Mitch McConnell is worried about the most right now politically speaking are two open seats in Georgia. Two seats that are going to go for a runoff on January 5th. And if those seats do not go to the Republicans, if they both turn over and become blue seats, he will lose his job as majority leader.

And what he is most concerned about right now, this is according to people who I've been talking to, who are familiar with his and other Republican leaders' thinking, is that if they, forgive me, piss off the president, and say, I'm sorry, you're wrong, sir, they're worried that he will either undermine the process in Georgia or he will not help them in Georgia.

Either way, it's a bad scenario for them. So it's about them and their power. And that's more of where they're leaning right now than the traditional protocols that allow for a peaceful transition of power and there are so many of them that you have already laid out in the show, Bri.

KEILAR: And, you know, Republicans, Dana, it's not they don't want to lose the White House, but if they're going to lose the White House, they don't also want to lose control of the Senate.

BASH: Exactly. KEILAR: For them it's a much better situation to have a Republican

Senate that they feel will counter a Democratic president.

BASH: Yes. And they're calculus is, just on the president's side of this, their calculus is that once the president sees the legal challenges not bear fruit, which nobody expects them to, even people who are probably actually doing this in the courts. They think that this is a futile battle. They're doing it because the president is demanding it. That once that happens, the president will accept the results.

That's a big if and that's a big leap, considering the history of this president and not accepting a lot of things that don't, you know, coordinate with what we're seeing in reality. So that's where they are right now. They're just kind of letting the president go through these stages of grief and acceptance and everything else that you can think of.

But it doesn't necessarily mean that that is how it's going to play out, and in the meantime, as you were talking about, Bri, you have the secretary of State who is responsible for keeping allies close, keeping adversaries, you know, confident in the fact that America is still America, saying, oh, well, we're going to go to a second Trump administration.

You know, maybe he was joking, but that is not funny when you're the secretary of State, and that there's no actual indication that he was joking. I know Gloria earlier today said that she saw him smirking. That's not the way to project confidence that America is still a beacon of democracy at a time where it certainly looks very, very fragile from inside and from around the globe.

KEILAR: Yes. We're watching these moments through all this continuum of pacification of the president, right? So we'll see how this all shakes out.

Dana Bash, if you could stand by for me because Joe Biden is actually going to be speaking live any moment. So we're going to watch that and talk about it. Plus, I'll speak to one of the scientists that is leading the charge on Pfizer's COVID vaccine. We'll have details on when it could be ready on a wide scale and how they can convince people to actually take it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:08]

KEILAR: I'm joined now -- or right now what we're looking at is former vice president Joe Biden, the president-elect, who's going to be speaking about health care today. That's his focus here now.

I want to bring in our chief political analyst Gloria Borger and our CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash as we are awaiting these comments. Literally this should begin any moment. So hang with us as we wait to see them. Dana, what are you expecting to hear from the president-elect, who I'm

getting used to calling him that. You know, that's sort of the weird transition we have to make. But what is he going to be seeing today on this very key day when it comes to Obamacare?

BASH: Well, he's -- we expect him to talk about the importance of Obamacare but also the need to update it. You know, it was a hard- fought battle for the now president-elect, then vice president himself and the rest of the Obama administration to get it done during a super majority in the Senate of his own party and majority in the House as well.

And remember, before the coronavirus hit, one of the biggest discussions and sort of flashpoints within the Democratic Party was what to do about health care? And there were lots of different ideas, and Joe Biden's was the most conservative, if you will. Meaning, don't throw it out. Don't do Medicare for All.

Let's build on what we have, and today, of course, is the day as we're speaking, and you had Ariane de Vogue at the Supreme Court on earlier, there are arguments being held and listened to by the Supreme Court about whether or not the current Trump administration can overturn Obamacare, and that would not allow then president, soon to be president Biden build on anything. They would have to start from scratch. So this is the core of what we expect him to talk about. The need to keep this law in place.