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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

GOP Digs In to Resist Reality of Trump's Election Loss; Pfizer's Early Data Shows COVID-19 Vaccine More Than 90 Percent Effective; Notre Dame Mandates Virus Testing After Football Celebration. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired November 10, 2020 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:25]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Laura Jarrett. It's Tuesday, November 10th. It's 5:00 a.m. here in New York.

And we begin this morning with disruption, disinformation, and denialism over the election results. Republicans in Washington aided by those on Fox unmoved by facts, peddling false hope that Trump could some how emerge the winner of this race. It's a strategy rooted in nothing more than frivolous claims now slowing down critical aspects of the transition, including most importantly national security.

Attorney General Bill Barr upending decades of previous guidance now telling federal prosecutors around the country they should look into allegations of voting irregularities before states certify their results. It's a reversal so disturbing that it prompted the top election crimes prosecutor at the Department of Justice to resign in protest last night.

Barr sent this letter hours after meeting with Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader had been viewed as a potential working partner for the president-elect. But McConnell still refuses to recognize Biden as the rightful winner of this election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: The system in place to consider concerns and President Trump is 100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities, and weigh his league options.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: OK. So McConnell seems determined to have it both ways. He praised Republican gains in the election but would not acknowledge Biden's victory on literally the same ballots.

Republican efforts to sow doubt even extending to the Georgia Senate race, the Georgia secretary of state, a Republican rejecting a call from both GOP candidates that he resign. They allege mismanagement of the election. They offer zero specifics or evidence.

The bottom line, Trump remade the GOP, now the party clearly believes they need him and his megaphone to galvanize Republican voters, even as he spouts bogus claims of fraud to hold off his inevitable exit.

JARRETT: So, what does all this mean for the Biden transition? For one, reality is setting in among Biden allies that the period leading up to his inauguration may be more challenging than he assumed. Of critical importance right now, President-elect Biden is not yet receiving highly classified intelligence briefing because as we mentioned yesterday, the Trump administration still hasn't officially signed off on designating Biden as the president-elect.

Now, legal action may be on the table here.

CNN's Jessica Dean joins us live this morning from Wilmington.

Jessica, nice to see you, appreciate you getting up.

Walk us through what exactly is happening now with the General Services Administration, essentially digging in, not willing to designate this transition.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, good morning to you, Laura. It's great to be with you guys this morning.

Look, as is absolutely customary, by this point and in a normal race, i.e., in 2016, the GSA would go ahead and trigger the formal transition process and that is a formalized process. It allows the president-elect access to money to fund payroll for transition employees, for security, for travel.

But even more importantly, maybe, it allows them access to federal agencies. So the people that are going to assume the roles on January 20th are allowed to get in there and begin this process. Remember just how big the federal government is. We're talking thousands and thousands of employees trying to get a handle on where each agency is, trying to get up to speed on where different projects are.

And you mentioned also, this is key, access to classified briefings. Of course, the president would have access to the highest classified information and typically the president-elect begins getting what's known as the presidential daily briefing. The PDB. That has simply not happened. So, President-elect Biden does not have access to a lot of key information that we would expect he would have access to by this point.

And that means he's not getting the most up to date information on whatever is happening in Iran or with North Korea, whatever the security situation may be.

The bottom line on this, Laura, is this is not typically at this point in the game. The GSA has tried to compare this to 2000 when Al Gore and George Bush were deadlocked in Florida. Remember, that was one state. A much smaller margin, and at this

point, the race had not been called by the networks.

[05:05:01]

It had -- it was just not at this point. It still hung in the balance.

This is different, and that is the case that the Biden campaign is making that we are now at a very different place in all of this. And as you mentioned, people close to the campaign are now realizing that this may be a lot harder than they thought it would be.

President-elect Biden himself over the weekend wanted to give Republicans time to get used to the results of this election and come around. He thought they would.

So far, here we are on Tuesday, that has not happened. It remains to be seen. Perhaps it will, you know, in the coming days. But if it doesn't, they believe they have a lot of options on the table, including legal options -- Laura.

JARRETT: All right. Jessica Dean, thank you so much for that. Appreciate it.

ROMANS: All right. Five minutes past the hour.

President-elect Biden is not receiving those national security briefings as President Trump deconstructs the entire apparatus as the Biden team tries to get in the door. And an early reminder, this lame duck could be anything but quiet. The president fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper Monday.

He was one of just a few of top administration officials who would regularly push back on President Trump, he's among those who urged the president to release security aid he tried to use as leverage over Ukraine that got minimum impeached and tried to distance himself from president Trump's photo op where he held up the bible after tear gassing protesters.

JARRETT: CNN has also learned that CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Chris Wray could also be in jeopardy here. The president and some of his conservative allies have become increasingly frustrated with Haspel in particularly, accusing her of delaying the release of documents they say would expose some sort of deep state plots against the president's first campaign. They have no support for that.

FBI Director Chris Wray has also provoked the president's ire with his frank testimony about the threat of white supremacy, and the threat of Russian addition information. Firing Wray, however, would provide an opening to the Biden administration, of course, as Wray is only three years into a ten-year term.

ROMANS: All right. Transition trouble overshadowing Biden's biggest priority containing coronavirus. There could finally be some hope on the horizon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:11:18]

ROMANS: All right. Breaking moments ago, PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat has died of coronavirus after treatment at a Jerusalem hospital. He was 65. He was a veteran peace negotiator for the Palestinians going back decades, arguing for a two-state solution for the Israelis. Erekat is one of the most prominent leaders to die of the virus.

JARRETT: The United States is now the first country to reach 10 million cases of coronavirus, that last million coming in the last nine days. By far, the fastest pace since the pandemic began. The seven worst days of this pandemic have all come in just the last week.

The number of Americans hospitalized right now reaching levels not seen since the spring and the summer. Ohio now among states warning hospitals may be overwhelmed in the coming weeks.

Here's one of the doctors on President-elect Biden's COVID-19 advisory board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, MEMBER OF PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN'S CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE: What America has to understand is we are about to enter COVID hell, 120,000, 130,000 new cases a day, when at one point we were talking about 23,000 to 25,000 cases a day, just weeks ago. This number is going to continue to increase substantially. We have not even come close to the peak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: We are about to enter COVID hell he says.

The map remains a sea of red with case counts worse or holding steady in all 50 states now. There are spikes around the world but the U.S. far outpacing everyone else.

Meantime, three top aides to President Trump have tested positive for coronavirus. Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, and David Bossie, who is overseeing the president's legal challenges. Several were at the White House on election night not wearing masks.

JARRETT: Still, there are promising developments on the vaccine front right now. Novavax getting fast-track authorization from the FDA for its vaccine, which could help speed up its approval. The vaccine will be the fifth to enter late stage clinical trials in the U.S. later this month. That announcement hours after encouraging early result from Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Anthony Fauci says help is on the way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You have to go through the hoops to make sure the I's are dotted and T's are crossed about the safety and the regulatory aspects of it. But we would be giving vaccine to people very likely before the end of this year. That is good news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Good news, but the vaccine will likely come too late to help with the current resurging pandemic we're seeing. States have already raised logistical questions as well about distributing the vaccine. Pfizer's vaccine is one that has two doses that have to be delivered at ultra cold temperatures.

But it is a positive step.

CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more on this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christine and Laura, I think that overall, this is good news. I mean, this is the sort of news we have been waiting for, for some time to basically get an idea how were these vaccines actually doing, how much of an impact could they make. You know, nobody had seen this data.

The way this works is there's this independent committee that basically unblinds the data and takes a look and that's what happened on Sunday. They called the CEO of Pfizer and they said the vaccine is showing 90 percent effectiveness.

I did talk to the CEO of Pfizer and asked him specifically how big a deal did he think these findings were.

DR. ALBERT BOURLA, CEO OF PFIZER: Ninety percent is a game changer, 90 percent, now we are hoping to have a tool in your war against in pandemic that could be significantly effective. How long this protection will last is something we don't know right now, but it's part of the objective. We will follow up the 44,000 people that they received, they are part of this study for two years.

[05:15:04]

And during this follow up, obviously, we will be looking also at the durability of the immune response.

GUPTA: The numbers are sometimes surprising to people, but this trial had about close to 44,000 people. People get the vaccine, half the group, the other half gets the placebo, and they see what happens. And over time, 94 people became infected.

The issue was where who was getting infected, placebo group or vaccinated group. You can see the numbers there. You are far more likely to get infected if you're in the placebo group versus the vaccinated group, so much so when you look at the math, it says it's about 90 percent effective.

Now, there's still a lot of questions. Is this enough data? We're still going to collect more. What about safety? They need to follow these patients for at least two months, which would end at the sort of third week, fourth week of November, and also, we get an idea that it helps prevent infection. It's 90 percent effective but does it also prevent severe disease in those who become infected?

Because, again, keep in mind, 80 percent of people, they do just fine on their own. They have minimal or no symptoms. So, you have to make sure the vaccine is actually helping people who are most likely to get sick from this.

Vaccine distribution could begin at the end of the year. Probably for the general public, Christine and Laura, we're looking more at the spring and summer of next year to become available.

But, again, all in all, good news.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Thanks, Sanjay.

You know, it was great news on Wall Street, showing optimism a post- coronavirus is in site. The Dow finished up, look at this, 834 points. That's nearly 3 percent. It had been up double that, and that falls just short of the February closing high.

The best gains were in the areas hit hardest by the pandemic. Look at AMC theaters. It did last month, it could run out of money by the end of the year. That stock rose 51 percent. Cruise lines like Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, they also soared. Shares of the major airlines rose.

A vaccine is critical to getting back to a new kind of normal. There were some notable market losers Monday. Stocks that have benefitted from millions of people working from home. Zoom shares fell 17 percent. Peloton down 20 percent. Clorox fell 10 percent.

You know, Laura, the S&P 500 right now is up just about 10 percent for the year. I mean, think about that, Wall Street has been doing fine basically. Main Street and Wall Street still kind of disconnected here.

JARRETT: Very disconnected.

Well, still ahead for you, thousands rush the field. Now, fans of the Fighting Irish are going to have to face the consequences.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:22:08]

ROMANS: All right. Notre Dame orders mandatory COVID testing after thousands of students rushed the field after Saturday's win over Clemson.

Coy Wire has this morning's "Bleacher Report".

Hey, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Good morning to you, Christine,

Notre Dame fans ignoring social distancing guidelines to celebrate. Now they're facing consequences. University President Father John Jenkins sent a letter to students facing disappointment and announcing strict new measures, including putting registration on hold for any student refusing to submit to testing. Jenkins didn't specifically reference the storming of the field, but did mention, quote, many gatherings over the weekend.

Now, remember, Jenkins himself was diagnosed with COVID-19 after visiting the White House in September without a mask.

And two big names in sports, Michigan state's hall of fame basketball coach Tom Izzo, and 2017 Masters champ Sergio Garcia testing positive for coronavirus. Garcia has withdrawn from this year's masters which tees off on Thursday, snapping his 21 year streak of not missing a Major tournament.

COVID is wreaking havoc on SEC football. The Mississippi State/Auburn game has been postponed after several positive coronavirus cases, contact tracing and injuries put Mississippi state under the minimum number of players required to play.

Fifth ranked Texas A&M scheduled to play Tennessee on Saturday after multiple positive tests within the program and LSU has multiple players including starters in quarantine, with number one Alabama in jeopardy.

Finally, two of the NFL's worst teams square off on Monday night football, delivering one of the best games of the year. The winless Jets have a 10-point lead only to see it slipped away. Cam Newton, running for his second touchdown of the game, tying at 27 with under two minutes to go. Then the Patriots get the ball back. Meaning former New York Jet, Nick Foles getting a chance at a 51-yard field goal. It is good.

Patriots move to 3-5 as the Jets dropped to 0-9 for the first time in franchise history. Jets fans saying afterwards, Laura, that Nick Foles, hit that game winner, they want the Jets to have the worst record in the NFL so they can possibly Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, first overall.

Oh, the pains of labor of love it is to be a Jets fan or player right now.

JARRETT: All right. Coy, nice to see you this morning. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

WIRE: You too.

JARRETT: All right. Joe Biden's transition to the White House is being held up right now by an outgoing administration that simply won't face reality. National security could be put at risk. We'll tell you what Biden's team is planning to do about all of this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:29:30]

JARRETT: Good morning. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura J.

ROMANS: Hi, Laura.

It's Christine Romans here. It's 29 minutes past the hour.

This morning, disruption, disinformation, denial over the election results. Republicans in Washington aided by those on Fox peddling false hope that Trump could somehow emerge the winner of this race. It is a strategy rooted in nothing more than frivolous claims, now slowing down critical aspects of the transition, including most importantly, national security.

Attorney General Bill Barr upending decades of previous guidance. He is now telling federal prosecutor, they should look into allegations of voting irregularities before -- before states certify results.