Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Trump Finally Relents, Allowing Biden Transition to Begin; Dr. Fauci Says, Thanksgiving Gatherings will Put Families at Risk. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 24, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: Triggered the official start of the transition to President-elect Biden.

[07:00:04]

In doing so, she put an end to these three long weeks of limbo and freed up millions of dollars to the Biden team. She also green lit federal agencies to start cooperating with the Biden team.

After Michigan certified Biden's win and several lawsuits in Pennsylvania were dismissed, Mr. Trump appeared to be closer to admitting defeat, effectively ending his long shot effort to overturn the results of the election. A senior Republican close to the White House tells CNN, quote, this is as close to a concession as you may get from Trump.

And as you could predict, hours later, the backtracking began on Twitter with the president claiming his legal fight is moving full speed ahead and that he will never concede.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Look, that backtracking though is frankly irrelevant, as is increasingly the last 58 days of the Trump presidency.

President-elect Biden is moving to build his cabinet now. This obviously going on as the pandemic in the United States getting much worse. Dr. Fauci warned that Thanksgiving could be a breaking point for a nation already struggling to keep up with rising cases and overcrowded hospitals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If, in fact, you're in a situation when you do the things that are increasing the risk, the travel, the congregate setting, not wearing masks, the chances are that you will see a surge superimposed upon a surge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: A surge on a surge. That doesn't sound good. We'll get into that more in the program. But, first, joining us now, CNN Political Director David Chalian and CNN Political Reporter Arlette Saenz. Great to see both of you this morning.

Arlette, man, slow and steady won the race for Joe Biden. He just -- he never seemed freaked out that this wasn't happening, that GSA wasn't certifying, that they weren't getting that letter, that Republicans weren't going along with it. He just sort of calmly and collectively said, this is happening, I'm going to keep naming people to my cabinet. I hope that Republicans do the right thing. It's becoming a national embarrassment.

And so, this morning, now that it's official as of last night, after dinner, how is the Biden team feeling?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, Alisyn, I think the way that you summarized the slow and steady wins the race is kind of looking back at Joe Biden's entire campaign. That is the mantra that he has had all along. He, even as during that campaign, as people started to count him out, he said wait until South Carolina and things will turn around. And in this transition process, you've seen him adopt that same approach.

But the Biden team is certainly happy this morning that they can actually start getting to work now that they have that green light for the transition process to begin. This is going to open up just a wide range of resources that they previously did not have access to.

They can actually now get their interagency teams into the various agencies and departments to kind of check out where things currently stand and what needs to be done as soon as they take office. We've even learned that there was some contact between the Department of Defense and Biden's transition team yesterday to start this process rolling.

It's also eventually going to open up access to millions of dollars in funding so that they can actually run their operations, and also, eventually, those high-level intelligence briefings that Biden, to this point, hasn't been receiving.

But overall, for Biden, he has stressed from the very beginning that he thought that they would eventually hit this mark down the road. And it's now finally here, where he is able to actually put his plans and coordinate with some of the key outgoing administration positions.

One issue that's going to be closely watched in the coming days is the coronavirus. The Biden campaign has been sounding the alarm over the past few days about not having the resources or access to the resources regarding the pandemic. And that's something that they'll eventually get to hit the ground running with.

BERMAN: So, David Chalian, Michigan and Pennsylvania both moved another step forward toward certifying the elections in those states. You had some more Republican officeholders coming out and trying to pressure the administration a little bit. You have business leaders, like Steven Schwartzman, coming out and saying Joe Biden is the president-elect. It's over.

But I think one thing should be pretty clear here, and I know it's clear to someone like you who watches this so closely, it wasn't any more obvious last night when Emily Murphy sent this letter that Joe Biden won the election than it was two and a half weeks ago. Honestly, nothing real changed. This doesn't and shouldn't be considered some massive profile in courage from the GSA administrator.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Not at all. I mean, it's good for the country. I'm glad we're moving forward with a formal transition process and that an incoming administration, in the midst of a pandemic and a crippled economy due to the pandemic, is actually going to have access to the teams that are currently managing or mismanaging, in some cases, this process.

[07:05:09]

This is all good.

But you're absolutely right, John, there is nothing different. All that has occurred over the last two and a half weeks, which, by the way, is when this so-called ascertainment should have happened two and a half weeks ago, is the normal process that occurs every single election. Once the initial canvas of the vote is done, there is a certification process by county and then by state. This is all pro forma stuff.

And in previous elections, you know, put 2000 aside, which I know Emily Murphy has been citing as an example, that was a totally different scenario. In previous elections, the transition would have been well underway already because it was crystal clear two and a half weeks ago that Joe Biden had become the president-elect of the United States. So, you're right, no profiles in courage here.

CAMEROTA: David, let's just look at who Biden's nominees are, what it spells for the country, what we can -- you know, what tea leaves we can glean from this. So his nominees are Tony Blinken, Alejandro Mayorkas, Avril Haines, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Jake Sullivan, John Kerry, Janet Yellen.

One of the points that has been made is that he knows these folks. He's worked with these folks. He knows their style. They know his style. And I thought it was interesting last hour, Joe Lockhart pointed out, President Trump didn't even know much of his cabinet. He had seen them on T.V. He had seen them on Fox T.V. but he didn't know them, personally, which is probably why he became quickly disgruntled with some of them.

CHALIAN: Yes. It's really interesting to see how Joe Biden is designing this right now because it's not very flashy, right? You're not bringing a lot of political celebrities in or folks that are high profile in the business world or what have you. What he's doing here is elevating area experts. These are people with real expertise. They have worked in the trenches in previous administrations, in these areas, in these departments. And they have risen to be the cream of the crop and risen to the top here now in these elevated positions from Joe Biden.

But he -- so, it is the contrast with Trump, Alisyn, as you note, because it's expertise and competence. But it is also the deep relationships here. And I think, specifically, on the national security appointments right now, Joe Biden knows that he has his hands full at the outset with the pandemic. I mean, issue one, two and three is COVID and getting his arms around it, vaccine distribution and getting the economy going.

But as you heard him campaign every single day on the campaign trail, he also believes that America has to restore its reputation on the world stage. And now, he's put in this team of experts and longtime advisers where the trust is already built to actually go run with that mission while he is focused primarily on the immediate concern of COVID.

BERMAN: If you look down that list, the number of people who have served as deputy in the job that they've been nominated now for to fill the top post, it's really interesting. I mean, he's honestly picking people who have practically done the same jobs before, just taking one step up.

Given where we are this morning, two days before Thanksgiving, and given where we are now with the official ascertainment of a presidential election, it seems an appropriate time to walk down memory lane and play this moment from presidential history. President Trump is going to pardon a turkey or turkeys today. This is what happened two years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The winner of this vote was decided by a fair and open election conducted on the White House website. This was a fair election. Unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount, and we're still fighting with Carrots. And I will tell you, we've come to a conclusion, Carrots, I'm sorry to tell you, the result did not change. It's too bad for Carrots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So just to carry the metaphor through, he's Carrots, right? I know, people need to know, as we are playing this, he's Carrots.

CAMEROTA: It's too bad for Carrots.

BERMAN: He is Carrots, in this scenario. He just laid out a scenario where he is now playing the part of Carrots.

Arlette, today, he will pardon some turkeys. For the next 58 days, he may pardon God knows who. To what extent is the Biden transition monitoring -- I mean, there's really nothing they can do about it -- monitoring the potential pardons that will come? How interested are they in the legal wranglings of whether the president can pardon himself for possible future investigations? What do you see?

SAENZ: Well, they're not getting into the minutiae of this just now, but they are certainly going to keep an eye on this moving forward in case there are any last-minute pardons to come from President Trump for people in his orbit, potentially.

[07:10:04]

But one thing that we have heard from Joe Biden back out on the campaign trail is that if there were any investigations to go into President Trump, that Joe Biden, himself, doesn't plan on issuing any type of pardons for the president if there is an opportunity that comes up relating to that. He talked about that earlier on the campaign trail.

But, certainly, as for the pardons that the president could issue in the closing days, I think that everyone is aware that the president could go to great lengths in these final days to accomplish some of the things that he wasn't able to do before.

CAMEROTA: I mean, David, we're being wrapped, but I don't know. Do you have anything to add to Carrot's refuse to concede? It's too bad for Carrots.

CHALIAN: I don't have anything to add. But, obviously, Donald Trump, I don't think envisioned in that moment, two years ago, that he would actually be in that very moment two years later as he prepares to do his final turkey pardon at the White House.

BERMAN: You don't think he was projecting at that point that he thought one day, he would be Carrots?

CHALIAN: I don't think so, John.

BERMAN: All right. I think, today, the name is Corn and Cob were the turkeys today.

CAMEROTA: That's cute.

BERMAN: I don't know which one of those turkeys he would play in the film version.

CAMEROTA: we're really running with this metaphor.

All right, moving on to something serious, Dr. Anthony Fauci warning that Thanksgiving could lead to another surge, meaning, a bigger surge of coronavirus cases than we're even experiencing, right now. What does this mean for all of us as well as all the people on your screen who are traveling right now?

BERMAN: I know you are making fun of me but there's no other interpretation than he's Carrots, right? You're not arguing that he's Carrots.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FAUCI: When you leave a location, have to go to an airport, or wherever it is, a train station, et cetera, the possibility of exposing yourself and then going home to your home community for, you know, a wonderful, traditional Thanksgiving holiday might actually, unfortunately, be a source of an even amplification of the surge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's Dr. Anthony Fauci warning that Thanksgiving gatherings will put American families at risk as coronavirus rages across the country. It's not just putting families at risk, it will lead to more hospitalizations, which puts us all at risk.

Joining us now, Dr. Megan Ranney, she is an Emergency Physician and Director of the Brown Lifespan Center for Digital Health. Also with us, Dr. Peter Hotez, he is the dean of the National Tropical School of Medicine at Baylor and co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.

Dr. Ranney, I'm going to start with you. On the issue of hospitals and what Dr. Fauci is talking about, a surge upon a surge, because you have been writing that you've never seen anything like what you are seeing right now. We're, what, nine, ten months into this, and you say you just did rounds where you never -- you have never seen so many COVID patients? Tell us about that.

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes, John. Hospitals across the country are in a really bad spot, right now. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. In the early months of the pandemic, we saw horrific surges in very small areas of the country. Right now, it's occurring in literally every state, except for Hawaii.

And hospitals across the country are running out of beds. Health care workers, we are sending out an SOS. We are running out of staff. We are opening up field hospitals. But we are desperately afraid that if we, as Americans, don't do the right thing, if this surge continues to grow, we're going to have to stop being able to provide care to people who come in, not just with COVID but with other serious medical problems as well, like heart attacks and strokes. We are in a bad situation in this country and it is about to get far worse.

CAMEROTA: And, Dr. Ranney, just one more question about that. Because you are in an emergency room in the northeast, the northeast is the place that obviously had the spike and all of that in the spring, so what's different? What are you experiencing on a daily basis in your emergency room that's different today than, say, April?

RANNEY: Yes. Alisyn, so, there's a couple of things that are different today than in April. The first is that the surge keeps growing. Back in the spring, we put lockdowns in place. Now, I'm not saying that I want full lockdowns in place now but we were doing something to stop the surge. And now, it just keeps spreading. So we're seeing the numbers rise and rise and rise.

The other thing that's different is that we're taking care of all those people who put off their care in the spring and are now coming back really sick with other problems, like late-stage cancer or untreated heart disease. So, our hospitals are full of two groups of patients who desperately need care.

The last thing that's different now, Alisyn, is that because this is happening around the country, there's no extra in the system. In the spring, those of us in the northeast brought in ventilators, brought in respiratory technicians from across the country. And in the summer, we all went down to the south and the southwest to help out in Florida and Arizona. Now, we're all stretched thin literally across the country. There's no give in the system any longer. And our colleagues are getting sick.

So, it is a tough spot that health care is in and this is the reason that we need to flatten the curve.

BERMAN: Dr. Hotez, the Georgia Institute of Technology put together an interesting chart to show what the chances are, the percent chance, that if you attend a Thanksgiving dinner with ten people, that one person there, at least, will be positive for COVID. The numbers are kind of small there, but there are a lot of places that it's over 20 percent, Las Vegas, Dallas, Miami, Columbus, Ohio, Boise, Idaho. St. Louis is higher than 30 percent. Chicago --

CAMEROTA: North Dakota is 61 percent.

BERMAN: Yes. I mean, basically, better than one in two chance in North Dakota if you go to Thanksgiving with ten people that someone there is going to have COVID. This puts it in perspective as you make decisions for what to do this Thursday, doesn't it?

[07:20:01]

DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, that's right. I mean, if you remember, early over the summer, the CDC issued recommendations, keep your gatherings to ten individuals or below. And now, that doesn't apply anymore.

There is such a screaming level of transmission across many parts of the country, especially the midsection of the country, up in the Dakotas, Iowa and West Texas, that, if you bring ten people together, there will be somebody with COVID at your table. And that's how bad it is right now. And this is why we have to really try to reduce as much as possible the number of people that we associate with right now.

Remember, it's not forever. Good vaccines are coming. But this is not a time to be gathering, in any numbers. And certainly, if you are in an airport or a bus station or a train station or a gas station, you will be up against people with COVID-19.

CAMEROTA: But, Dr. Peter Hotez, for I think many people, it's still confusing. I know you have been screaming from the rafters and I know it's easy to just say stay inside, don't gather. Except that restaurants are still open in a lot of places, businesses are still open, people are wanting to do Christmas shopping. And so I think what Dr. Ranney was saying in terms of there not being a lockdown, it makes it a little bit confusing for people, not that I'm advocating for a lockdown, but we're in this horrible, you know, choice between a lockdown or being a little bit confused. Are people still, with a mask on, supposed to be going out to pick something up at the store? Are you supposed to go with your family to an outdoor restaurant right now or not do any of that stuff?

HOTEZ: At this point, don't do any of that stuff. And it's not even a lockdown. It's just responsible social distancing. Remember, as Dr. Ranney was pointing out, we have now got surges in our hospitals and ICUs and that's really scary. Because we saw back in New York in March and April and in Southern Europe, that's when the mortality rates really skyrocket, as ICU staff start to get overwhelmed.

It's not just the number of beds. It's the number of trained nursing staff and other professionals. We just don't have them, and they're getting overwhelmed or exhausting, donning and dothing PPE and just long shifts.

And so, over time, that's when you see the death rates, you know, go from this to this and they really skyrocket. And that's happening now.

And this is -- and remember, we don't -- this is -- we have time limits, this time around. In the past, you know, when I have talked about this, I haven't really given any idea of when we can get back to some kind of normalcy or normal life.

Now, we have good vaccines coming. So, if you can just get your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, to the other side, we'll get them vaccinated. They'll live a normal life. This is not a time to be defiant or to do reckless things.

BERMAN: Dr. Hotez, Dr. Ranney, thank you both for being with us and thank you both so much for the work that you're doing.

We want to remember some of the nearly 258,000 Americans lost to coronavirus.

58-year-old Pastor Jeff Walter prayed for many in his Duluth, Minnesota, flock over the years. Then it was their turn to pray for him. His daughter says he was a light in our community and a light in our family. He's also survived by a wife and a son.

Mante Chacon charted his award-winning food truck business in Taos, New Mexico, back in 1973. He was named an honorary firefighter for helping raise money to help local public safety agencies. Taos sheriff and fire department returned the favor escorting his ashes from Colorado, where he died, back home to Taos. He was 77 years old.

The Chicago Police Department describes 9/11 Dispatcher Lupe Lopez as a voice of security and reassurance for officers on the overnight shift in troubled neighborhoods. The retired deputy police chief told The Chicago Tribune, he was more than taking care of business, he was taking care of the officers. Lopez was 58 years old.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

CAMEROTA: The White House transition to President-elect Biden is finally underway this morning. President Trump finally relented, sort of, and is allowing the business of the peaceful transition of power to happen after a long, three weeks of limbo.

Joining us now is House Majority Whip and Democratic Congressman James Clyburn. Good morning, Congressman.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Good morning, how are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm doing well. And you must be very relieved because you had said, as recently as last night or yesterday, that you felt that Emily Murphy, the GSA administrator, would have blood on her hands if she didn't do this soon. And so, it took three weeks but she worked her way around to ascertaining the election win for Joe Biden.

And in so doing, she sent a personal letter about what her process, her thought process, has been. I just want to read a portion of it to you. She said, GSA does not dictate the outcome of legal disputes and recounts, nor does it determine whether such proceedings are reasonable or justified. These are issues of the Constitution. Federal laws and state laws lead to the election certification process and decisions by courts.

I do not think an agency charged with improving federal procurement should place itself above the constitutionally-based election process. I strongly urge Congress to consider amendments to the act.

Congressman, does she have a point that these long three weeks have sort of exposed to the American public, certainly, the loopholes in the system, whereby, a GSA administrator can bring everything to a grinding halt or a county canvassing board can muck up the works or state electors? Have you learned something or Congress? And will you try to amend things or do something different because of all of this?

CLYBURN: Well, thank you very much for having. You know, she does have a point, no question about that. And that's not the only point that we need to visit as a result of this election. We never anticipated that the founding fathers and the people who wrote the various parts of these bills that any president would act this way.

[07:30:05]