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White House Staffers Planning Departure?; Biden Delivers Address on Economic Crisis; Pandemic Raging; COVID Leading Cause of Death This Week, Almost 3,000 Dead In 1 Day; Daily Life Transformed: The Impact Of COVID-19 Across US; Americans Desperate For Relief; Presidential Pardon Bribery Investigation. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired December 04, 2020 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:44]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM.

We're following breaking news, alarming new numbers in the coronavirus crisis; 278,000 Americans have now lost their lives to COVID-19, and the country is facing more than 14.2 million confirmed cases. It is now the leading cause of death this week in the United States. COVID killed nearly as many Americans just yesterday as died on 9/11, almost 3,000 people.

That has the CDC using its strongest language yet to encourage the use of masks, calling them critical and saying in some cases masks should even be worn at home.

And just a short time ago, president-elect Biden talked about the pandemic. He told reporters he has not yet seen any detailed Trump administration plan on how to -- quote -- "get the vaccine out of the container into a syringe and into somebody's arm."

Biden also said the U.S. will be in what he called dire, dire, dire straits unless Congress immediately passes a new pandemic stimulus bill.

Let's begin this hour with the breaking pandemic news.

CNN's Nick Watt is joining us from Los Angeles.

Nick, there are new stay-at-home orders that have just been issued out there in California, where you are, that impacts millions of people.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf.

It's a new stay-home order, covers five counties up in the San Francisco Bay Area, lasts through at least January 4.

Now, you remember yesterday, Governor Newsom out here said that, if a region's ICU capacity reaches a critical level, then they have to go into a stay-home order. That hasn't actually happened yet up there in the Bay Area, but local leaders said, listen, we know these numbers are going to get worse, so let's just do this now, before it's too late.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (voice-over): This week, COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in America. And it's going to get worse.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We have not yet seen the post-Thanksgiving peak.

WATT: By the spring, more than half-a-million Americans could be dead.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, PROFESSOR OF GLOBAL HEALTH, EMORY UNIVERSITY: And while we are all excited about the vaccine, the reality is, the model says the vaccine, probably by April 1, will only save about 10,000 to 11,000 deaths.

WATT: Thursday was the worst day of this pandemic so far, a record number of new cases, a record number of Americans in the hospital, and 2,879 dead, the most lives lost in a single day, one gone every 30 seconds.

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Help is on the way. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

WATT: A hint at how the next administration will handle this hell?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask, just 100 days to mask, not forever, 100 days. And I think we will see a significant reduction.

WATT: Masking alone could save tens of thousands of lives.

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, BIDEN CORONAVIRUS ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER: It's cheap, and it doesn't shut down the economy. Shutdowns or lockdowns are really not on the table, at least not from the Biden/Harris team.

WATT: Today states must submit vaccine distribution plans. At first, there might not be enough even for the first priority group, health care workers and long-term care residents.

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): That is millions and millions of people, when you only have a few hundred thousand doses of vaccine.

WATT: And new national jobs numbers suggest the economic recovery is stalling.

PACO VELEZ, PRESIDENT AND CEO, FEEDING SOUTH FLORIDA: Today, we have over 1,000 families coming through this line to take this box home and provide it to their families. Unfortunately, this is the last week of this coronavirus food assistance program.

WATT: And in many places, public school enrollment is down, distance learning just not the same.

ELIZABETH NEWHART, PARENT: They were having tantrums.

WATT: So, the Newharts of Illinois just went in-person private.

NEWHART: We had to do a lot of number crunching, but we felt it was something that we had to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, Wolf, you mentioned the CDC now saying that you should sometimes even wear a mask inside your own house. That's because there is so much asymptomatic spread and spread between members of the same household.

[18:05:08]

They are also stressing once more that masks are the best way for us to keep businesses open and get kids back into school -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, the CDC also says that half of those who are transmitting this virus are totally asymptomatic. They don't know they have it, but they're passing it along. That is why masks are so critically important.

Nick Watt reporting for us. Thank you very much.

We just heard president-elect Biden speaking about the pandemic and answering reporters' questions.

Let's go to our political correspondent, MJ Lee. She's in Wilmington, Delaware, for us.

MJ, Biden didn't sugarcoat the seriousness of the crisis now facing the country.

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: He sure didn't, Wolf.

And we are weeks out from Inauguration Day now, and president-elect Joe Biden seems to want to prepare the American public for the very real possibility that things could get much worse before they get better.

This is not just when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the state of the economy as well.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BIDEN: Americans need help, and they need it now.

LEE (voice-over): A dismal jobs report on Friday, a grim reminder of the painful economic recession president-elect Joe Biden will inherit come January, the U.S. economy adding just 245,000 jobs in November, far fewer than economists had hoped for.

Biden urging Congress to immediately take action.

BIDEN: The folks out there aren't looking for a handout. They just need help. They're in trouble, through no fault of their own. We're in a crisis. We need to come together as a nation. We need the Congress to act, and act now.

LEE: Biden also raising the alarm about vaccine distribution, saying he is not satisfied with what he has seen so far from the Trump administration.

BIDEN: There is no detailed plan, that we have seen anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container into an injection syringe into somebody's arm. And it is going to be very difficult for that to be done and it's a very expensive proposition.

LEE: This after the former vice president detailed an urgent step, he would take to get the pandemic under control in an exclusive sit-down with CNN's Jake Tapper.

BIDEN: On the first day I'm inaugurated, is to say, I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask, just 100 days to mask, not forever, 100 days. And I think we'll see a significant reduction if we incur that -- if that occurs, with vaccinations and masking.

LEE: Biden revealing that he asked Dr. Fauci, a widely trusted figure in the fight against COVID-19, to stay on in his government

BIDEN: I asked him to be a chief medical adviser for me as well and to be part of the COVID team.

LEE: Fauci saying he readily accepted the offer.

FAUCI: Oh, absolutely. I said yes right on the spot.

LEE: Now less than seven weeks until Inauguration Day, Biden indicating Trump's attendance would send an important signal.

BIDEN: The protocol of the transfer of power, I think, is important. But it is totally his decision, and it's -- it's of no personal consequence to me. But I do think it is for the country.

LEE: Next year, a closely divided Senate awaits Biden, who himself served as senator for more than three decades. Some of his former Republican colleagues in Congress have yet to publicly acknowledge his White House victory. But, according to Biden, it's a different story behind the scenes.

BIDEN: There have been more than several sitting Republican senators who have privately called me and congratulated me.

And I understand the situation they find themselves in. And until the election is clearly decided in the minds, when the Electoral College votes, they get put in a very tough position.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: And, Wolf, we have been doing a lot of reporting on the ongoing push for more racial diversity in Biden's Cabinet. And what we are learning is that there's a lot of lobbying to avoid a situation where the top four Cabinet positions are all appointed with white women and men.

And just keep in mind already appointed are the positions of secretary of state and Treasury secretary, but Biden has not yet appointed his attorney general, his defense secretary. And we heard Biden telling reporters today that he is not going to make a specific commitment when it comes to those two specific roles, but he did say we are going to see significant diversity in his Cabinet when all of the announcements have been made -- Wolf.

BLITZER: MJ Lee reporting for us.

MJ, thanks very much.

Let's get some more on all of this.

Dr. Peter Hotez is joining us, professor and dean of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Hotez, thanks so much for joining us.

You just heard president-elect Biden say the Trump administration does not have a detailed vaccine distribution plan, at least as far as he has seen. He has not seen it yet. And they have been briefing him during this transition.

[18:10:04]

How concerning is it to hear that, while we could be only days away from an approved vaccine, the federal government may not necessarily be prepared to get the vaccine into arms? What is going on?

DR. PETER HOTEZ, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, that is a good question, Wolf.

One of the exciting aspects of Operation Warp Speed is they brought in General Gus Perna, who is an expert in logistics, to work out all of those details in terms of -- especially for a complicated delivery mechanism like the Pfizer vaccine requires, the deep freeze technology and other aspects. We have never done this with an mRNA vaccine before.

So this is not going to go smoothly. We're going to need detailed plans for each of the states. Now, in the past, the Trump administration has not led a COVID national response, and this is one of the problems. He's had the states in the lead, who never had the intellectual horsepower to know how to -- and the epidemiologic knowledge to know how to control COVID-19, and work with epidemiologic models, et cetera.

And there was the backup supply chain management, but it wasn't adequate. Now once again the states are going to be asked to take the lead on delivering the vaccines. And that is not too surprising, since a lot of vaccine policy is set at the state level. But I would have anticipated there would have been a detailed road map

by this point. So, hopefully, the states are on top of it. And, again, we will probably see a lot of variability from state to state.

BLITZER: The CDC, Dr. Hotez, now says masks are critical, even at home, and president-elect Biden says he will encourage Americans to mask up for 100 days once he takes office.

Could increased mask wearing, plus a vaccine, finally, finally turn the tide of this pandemic?

HOTEZ: Well, I actually think there are three things.

Clearly, the masks are critical. If you look at the Institute for Health Metrics models, whether or not we get 95 percent mask compliance makes all the difference as to whether we will have 500,000 or 600,000 Americans who will lose their lives by the time around the inauguration vs. 300,000, 400,000.

So, they are absolutely critical. I think the other piece to this is preventing those surges on the intensive care units. This is what we saw in El Paso and Lubbock in Texas, here in Texas. This is what we're seeing in the North-Central Midwest.

And the reason that is concerning is because that is when the mortality rates really start to skyrocket. So, the other piece to this are measures similar to what Governor Newsom has proposed in California, which is -- where there are surges starting to happen and where surges are threatening, that's where we have to maximize social distancing.

That is pretty much going to be the mainstay from now until the time when vaccines roll out in the coming months. And the good news is, vaccines are coming. We are going to probably have four or five vaccines by the early part of next year. We are going to need all of those vaccines to vaccinate the American people.

BLITZER: Yes, we're just looking at the numbers. More than 2,000 Americans have died just today, and the day isn't even over yet. And these numbers are simply so staggering.

As you know, Dr. Hotez, COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the United States this week, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

And Dr. Fauci is warning we have not even seen the post-Thanksgiving surge yet. That could come in another week or two weeks. Do people understand just how serious this situation is, how deadly this situation is right now?

HOTEZ: No, Wolf.

When I walk around my neighborhood in Texas, I'm still seeing more people than not, not wearing masks, which is so disheartening. So, the word is really not getting out like it needs to. And this goes to show you how important it is to have federal

leadership and guidance. So, just by having a new administration in the White House reemphasizing the importance of masks and social distancing, just that alone is going to be a-game changer.

We still have governors in the middle part of the country, many in red states, still defiant, still believing the Scott Atlas COVID hoax theory and attributing deaths to other causes. This is terrible.

And so, I am trying to do everything I can in the middle part of the country to get the word out, because all we need to do is keep everyone alive for the next couple months. And we have vaccines on the other side.

And there's no reason anyone has to lose their life between now and the first couple months of the new year. So, this is all about saving lives. And it's everything, I think, up to every American now to do whatever they can to protect their mother, their father, their brother or sister. No one has to lose their life.

BLITZER: Yes, just wear a mask. Do some social distancing. Stay safe.

Dr. Hotez, thanks, as usual, for joining us. We always are grateful to you.

HOTEZ: Thank you.

BLITZER: An important note to our viewers: Please join Sanjay Gupta, along with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Anthony Fauci, for a coronavirus town hall answering your questions tonight about vaccines, tonight 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.

[18:15:00]

There is more breaking news we're following. Insiders are now revealing what they're calling a toxic atmosphere at the White House right now, as we're learning that a growing and growing number of senior White House staffers are plotting their departures.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The breaking news tonight, president-elect Biden speaking about the pandemic just a little while ago and warning that the country will be in dire straits if Congress fails once again to pass a new pandemic relief bill and does it very, very soon.

There is also breaking news coming out of the White House right now. Sources there are telling CNN that a growing number of Trump aides are actually abandoning the president's efforts to try to overturn the election and they're plotting their own departures.

[18:20:00]

Let's to go our chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Jim, you're learning new information. JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf.

CNN has learned more White House staffers are beginning to plan their departures from the administration. One senior administration official told me the White House is becoming -- quote -- "more toxic by the day," with people -- quote -- "turning on each other."

Other staffers here are frustrated the president won't give it up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): The White House is caught in a bind. As top officials are scrambling to save two Republican Senate seats in the upcoming Georgia run-off races, President Trump is still crying foul over the election he lost more than a month ago.

PENCE: We need the Peach State to defend the majority, because the road to the Senate Republican majority runs right through the state of Georgia.

ACOSTA: The president's attacks on the election results have undermined his own party's chances in Georgia. Mr. Trump has blasted the state's governor, Brian Kemp, privately calling him a moron behind the scenes, all part of his complaints he was cheated.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They know it was a fixed election. It was a rigged election. They know it. And I appreciate their support.

ACOSTA: The result? Some Trump supporters are questioning whether they should even bother voting for incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. That has Republicans worried.

SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): President Trump's very frustrated. I'm very frustrated. And we're going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that whatever anomalies are uncovered in November don't happen in January.

But this is illogical for any Republican to think that, oh, I'm just going to sit down and not vote and hand, as you say, the keys over to the Democrats. We know what's at stake.

ACOSTA: CNN has learned the president's refusal to concede has frustrated members of his own staff, who are heading for the exits, with one source saying some aides worry Mr. Trump is both tarnishing his own legacy and undermining voters' faith in U.S. elections.

A senior administration official described a West Wing environment that is getting nasty, saying -- quote -- "I think people are moving on because they have families or livelihoods to support, that, and the place is becoming more toxic by the day, people turning on each other, trying to settle scores while they can."

As some staffers are resigning, like White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah, other Trump loyalists are lining up influential posts, with advisers Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie be appointed to the Pentagon's Defense Business Board, the kind of deep state behavior Mr. Trump has railed against in the past.

TRUMP: Unelected deep state operatives who defy the voters to push their own secret agendas are truly a threat to democracy itself.

ACOSTA: Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist, laid out another danger in questioning the election results. It is emboldening U.S. adversaries.

QUESTION: Does the intelligence show that foreign adversaries are amplifying the voter fraud allegations?

JOHN RATCLIFFE, U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: They are.

QUESTION: Who is doing that?

RATCLIFFE: I can't tell you.

QUESTION: But they are?

RATCLIFFE: Yes.

QUESTION: And what is their objective?

RATCLIFFE: To undermine public confidence in our democratic processes.

ACOSTA: Another serious concern, the virus-ravaged economy, as only 245,000 jobs were added last month, 224,000 fewer than expected, as the unemployment rate dipped to 6.7 percent. The numbers showed job growth is slowing as the pandemic worsens.

LARRY KUDLOW, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: I don't think the job numbers are necessarily the end-all and be-all. I think we're way ahead of expectations. And I think the economy is still fundamentally sound.

ACOSTA: Which is why congressional leaders are finally moving toward a compromise on a relief bill, though smaller than Democrats would like.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): It is less money, but over a shorter period of time, and we need to do it to save lives and livelihood, with the hope that much more help is on the way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Now, staffers who are plotting their departures are now ignoring warnings from a senior White House official, Johnny McEntee, who last month threatened to fire administration employees who were looking for work elsewhere.

As one White House adviser put it, some are moving on. It is simply time for them to move on. And, Wolf, the president may think he is heading into a second term in office somehow, but most of his staffers here don't share that opinion -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, they totally understand what is going on.

All right, Jim Acosta, thank you very much.

Let's get some more on all of this.

Our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, is with us. Our CNN political correspondent, Abby Phillip, is with us as well.

Gloria, while the president continues to tweet about election fraud -- he's nonstop doing so, I think, in part, because it's raising a lot of money for his political campaign -- the president-elect, Biden, today, in contrast, urged Congress to take action on a COVID relief bill.

What did you make of Biden's comments and what he had to say specifically about his relationship with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think Biden behaved like a president, somebody who is telling Congress what he wants exactly, what he would like to see them approve.

We have spent the last four years with members of the president's own party wondering out loud, what does the president want? People didn't know where Donald Trump was. And when he finally told them where he was on something -- remember the stimulus package -- he was -- first, he was for it. Then he was against it. Then he was for it. Changed his mind.

[18:25:02]

What you saw Joe Biden do today is what presidents do, which is they say, this is what I want. This bipartisan bill is something I would like to see passed. I would like to see this as a down payment on more to come after I would take office.

And when it comes to Mitch McConnell, Wolf, he sort of smiled a bit when he was asked about whether he had spoken with McConnell. He wouldn't answer the question. We knew the last time that he had said, no, he hadn't spoken to McConnell, so you can draw your own conclusion about that.

But he said something that was interesting to me, which is, they have had a long relationship. He said: "He knows me. He knows I'm straight as an arrow when I negotiate. He knows I keep commitments. And I never attempt to embarrass the opposition."

So, he's not going to degrade anyone who disagrees with him or -- and his objective is not to embarrass them or question their motives. His objective is to get things done.

BLITZER: Yes, in marked contrast to the current president of the United States.

BORGER: Yes.

BLITZER: Abby, Biden wouldn't get pinned down on whether he will name a person of color as the defense secretary or the attorney general, but he promised that, when all the Cabinet announcements are made, he will have the most diverse Cabinet in American history.

He is certainly facing a lot of pressure on this front, isn't he?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely.

And it is partly because this is a president who more than perhaps any other owes the support of groups like black voters and women and Latino voters for his coming into office.

But one of the things about Joe Biden is that he, over the summer, had actually already committed to naming a woman as vice president. And I had heard from friends of his that there was a little bit of hand- wringing about him boxing himself in, in that way so early on in the process.

Now, ultimately, I think many Democrats would agree it ended up the way they liked for it to have ended up. But at the same time, you're seeing Biden being more hesitant to being boxed in, wanting to keep his options open as much as possible, so he can have the flexibility to move the puzzle pieces around.

This is a very complex thing they're trying to do here, finding candidates who are qualified for the job, who are acceptable to the United States Senate, which could be a teetering on a very tight margin with either Republican control or a very narrow Democratic control, and also finding candidates who are acceptable to progressives in the party and moderates in the party and constituent groups in the party.

So I think Biden is just trying to keep his options open, but I do suspect that, given the names we have seen already for some of these top posts, attorney general, homeland -- I'm sorry -- health and human services secretary and also defense secretary, there are a lot of diverse candidates being considered.

So it seems pretty likely that at least one, if not more of those roles will go to a person of color.

BLITZER: Yes, we shall see very, very soon in the coming days.

Gloria, we're getting more a more signs that people around President Trump are finally beginning to accept reality, from these White House staffers plotting their next moves looking for jobs already, to signals that the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, will eventually sit down and meet with the Biden transition.

Does that make it harder for the president to simply ignore what is really happening here in the United States right now?

BORGER: Well, it should, but it won't.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: I mean, I think we just have to give up on the notion that Donald Trump is ever going to concede the election. He needs the adulation. He needs his supporters to believe, along with him -- whether he

really believes it, I don't know that we will ever know -- that he won, that the election was rigged, and then he can move on and do whatever he wants, whether he wants to monetize this into something or turn it into an election in 2024.

I think it is also quite remarkable that we have to point out, Wolf, that, finally, Secretary of State Pompeo would deign to meet with the secretary of state-designate Tony Blinken.

This is something -- a phone call should have been made a long time ago about. It's just absurd that everybody has had to have this artifice because of the president of the United States' unwillingness to recognize the fact that he lost the election.

BLITZER: Yes, good point, indeed.

All right, guys, thank you very, very much.

Just ahead, we will take a closer look beyond the horrible coronavirus numbers to see how doctors and nurses are fighting COVID-19 nationwide.

[18:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Our breaking news right now, 278,000 Americans now have lost their lives to COVID-19. Nearly, 3,000 died yesterday alone. It's now the leading cause of death this week in the United States. We asked CNN's Sara Sidner to take a closer look at how the pandemic has changed life across the United States as we approach what experts are not predicting will be a very, very dark winter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My business pretty much tripled.

SARA SIDNER, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In Imperial County, California with an 18% unemployment rate that would normally be great news, but this is a funeral home inundated with bodies.

[18:35:00]

SIDNER (on camera): How much worse can this get?

SHEILA KRUGER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, FRYE CHAPEL AND MORTUARY: We're afraid. You know when the first wave hit, our hospitals were sending patients out of county to other hospitals because they were at capacity. That's not going to happen this time, because nobody has room anymore.

SIDNER (voice-over): The COVID-19 summer surge overwhelmed her staff, going from an average of 55 deaths in one month. Sheila Kruger fronted containers with the dead, they are filling up again KRUGER: So, we can put two or three. We're backed up four and five weeks out now. And we've had married couples that die within a day of each other. Parents and children die within a week of each other. It's heart wrenching.

SIDNER (voice-over): Even with all the new treatments helping bring death down and a vaccine on the way, COVID-19 is killing one person in America every 30 seconds. In Kansas, one patient says the politicization of masks is killing people.

JACE BRUCE, COVID-19 PATIENT: I've convinced that there are going to be so many people that are going to die just because of what I'm going to call political.

SIDNER (voice-over): For months, throngs of health care workers have been working to exhaustion battling to save as many lives as they can, but seeing more death than ever before.

DR. SHANNON TAPIA, GERIATRICIAN: UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't want to say it's been harder for us than it has for everybody else, but the truth is it has.

SIDNER (voice-over): From a doctor in Colorado, one at a 41 people are contagious, according to the governor, to a COVID unit nurse in Kansas where ICU beds in one part of the state are at capacity. There has been no respite.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two to three weeks we're going to be just swamped.

SIDNER (voice-over): One healthcare system with hospitals in 21 states is reporting a 70% increase in hospitalizations over the past three weeks, caring for highly contagious coronavirus patients is taking its toll on everyone. In a newly released survey of 1,100 healthcare workers, 76% reported exhaustion and burnout.

DR. ADOLPHE EDWARD, CEO, EL CENTRO REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: I think we're past the breaking point. So the staff is here but they are broken but they still continue to come.

SIDNER (voice-over): Dr. ADOLPHE EDWARD runs El Centro Regional Medical Center in California. This hospital has just two ICU beds left before they're at capacity. While working nonstop since the summer's deadly surge, they're facing down yet another surge. This time, a second field hospital with 50 beds has been erected. The medical tent mimicking a familiar scene to this Air Force veteran.

EDWARD: This brings me back or takes me back to when we were in the middle of Baghdad.

SIDNER (voice-over): Are we in a war, though?

EDWARD: We are. So, we used to shy away from using the term war zone. We're in a war zone against COVID.

SIDNER (voice-over): The signs of a big battle are reappearing across the country.

On Staten Island, an emergency hospital reopened. Corona hospitalizations there have nearly tripled. In Rhode Island, a field hospital erected. Another put up by the National Guard in Massachusetts and a terribly familiar plea we heard at the beginning of the pandemic now repeated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you have the skills, the ability, they can do attitude and have time to work in a hospital, we need you.

SIDNER (voice-over): Experts say what we really need to put the disease on ice the vaccine. Here in El Centro, they took part in the AstraZeneca trial and now have one of the precious super cold refrigerators that hold the delicate vaccine.

EDWARD: This refrigerator I call it my life right now. This is -- every night we come in to make sure everything is OK with it, that it has what it takes and that we're prepared to actually take it to the next level.

SIDNER: Dr. Edward and all the doctors and nurses that we have talked to are begging people. They're imploring people to do the right thing, at the very least please wear a mask. And if you need any reason to do that, just think about this. This week coronavirus was the single largest cause of death in our country. Wolf.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So sad, Sara Sidner, reporting for us. Thank you very much, Sara.

Just to add, millions of Americans are getting increasingly desperate, but Congress still hasn't passed the new economic stimulus relief bill. We'll talk about that and more with Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono. There you see her, she's standing by live. We'll discuss when we come.

[18:39:18]

BLITZER: We're following multiple breaking stories including President-elect Joe Biden this afternoon, urgently calling on Congress to pass an economic stimulus bill.

We're joined now by Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. She serves on both the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees. Senator Hirono, thank you so much for joining us.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): Good evening.

BLITZER: As you heard, the President-elect is urging Congress to pass this desperately needed COVID relief bill. He said it would be better if this included stimulus checks. How hopeful are you that Congress can reach an agreement get help immediately to the desperate folks out there who need it?

HIRONO: I am hopeful because this bipartisan bill represents the first time that Republicans have gotten together in the Senate to come up with a bipartisan bill. So up to now, Mitch McConnell has had no interest and looking at the House passed Heroes Act which was, by now, six months ago. So this is really the first time that some Republicans have stepped forward to say we need to do something.

We need to provide UI benefits. We need to help state and counties. We need to provide, you know, testing support, education, support all of that. And I am hopeful. We're still working out the details.

[18:45:08]

BLITZER: I hope you guys do it because there are so many people out there who are just simply having trouble putting food on the table for their kids --

HIRONO: We know.

BLITZER: -- and paying the rent, and just going on and on. It's desperately needed.

Earlier today, senator, the President-elect dodge on whether he'll nominate a person of color as defense secretary or as attorney general, but he says he'll have the most diverse cabinet in American history. Do you agree with the different groups right now lobbying the President-elect to do more to diversify the top positions in his cabinet?

HIRONO: Joe Biden said that he would have a diverse cabinet and his pick so far have been very, very competent people, people who know how government should run to help people as opposed to hurting them. And so, I expect the President to nominate more people of diverse backgrounds and experiences.

It's not over, but I think that it is appropriate also for the various groups who worked really hard to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to articulate their positions.

BLITZER: How important do you think it would be that the President nominate a person of color to be the defense secretary and/or the attorney general?

HIRONO: Well, I would certainly be supportive of that. I just want to be sure, though, that whoever he picks is someone who can follow the rule of law, who will, in terms of the attorney general, it will be someone who is going to be the lawyer for the whole country and not for the President.

So first and foremost, yes, I would like diversity. I'd like to see more. Asians, APIAs in the top echelons of the cabinet. I'd like to see more black, so yes.

So the main thing is, though, that we are going to have a cabinet made up of people who know what the heck they're doing and who will help Joe Biden, move our country forward and get, first and foremost, I'd say, get this pandemic under control so that we can have an economy that can be reopened safely. BLITZER: You're ready to stay here in Washington until there's an economic stimulus package passed and forget about Christmas and New Year if necessary?

HIRONO: I'm prepared to stay here for the purpose of enacting this legislation which, by the way, we're going to need to do a stimulus bill next year. What this bipartisan bill is, it is an emergency relief measure that will take us through to possibly April, but it will help and it's very much needed. But we are going to have to do a lot more with a new administration.

And Joe Biden is prepared to do that. He is providing the kind of leadership that we have not seen. I am basically four years, 47 days ago, Wolf.

BLITZER: I know. January 20th, that's where he becomes the president of the United States, all right. Senator Hirono, thanks so much for joining us, good luck.

HIRONO: Thank you. Everyone, stay safe. Be kind.

BLITZER: You stay safe, too. Thank you.

Just to have this more breaking news, we're getting, right now, some new information about a Justice Department investigation of an alleged presidential pardon bribery scheme. We'll have details right after this.

[18:48:23]

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BLITZER: Just more breaking news, we're following -- we're learning that the Justice Department investigation into an alleged bribery plot to obtain presidential pardons involved a lawyer for the President's son in law, Jared Kushner and a well-known Republican lobbyist. CNN's Senior White House Correspondent Pamela Brown is working the story for us. Pamela, update our viewers.

PAMELA BROWN, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, we are learning more about this DOJ investigation into a bribery for presidential pardons scheme. And what we're learning, Wolf, is that some of Trumps associates were involved in this and that would include Abbe Lowell.

Abbe Lowell was the lawyer for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and the President's kids, of course and, at the time, represented someone who was allegedly part of this effort. And it also includes a Republican lobbyist and fundraiser by the name of Elliott Broidy. These people were involved in this apparent scheme that we learned about this week, Wolf, because of court documents that were heavily redacted but unsealed by the judge.

Now, these were efforts that happened earlier in the Trump administration days. And there were still many details to work out here. But according to the information we've gathered from sources and through the information released by the courts, we've learned that the idea behind this scheme was for a political donor to give us a substantial political donation, in exchange for clemency, for a psychologist out, psychologist by the name of Hugh Baras who had been charged with some tax issues in 2014. This was part of the scheme.

Now, we should note that the lawyer for Abbe Lowell says that he's getting the indication from DOJ that his client did nothing wrong here, that he is under scrutiny at all. And the representatives as well for the others involved in this, including Baras and Broidy have said, there's no indication that they're under investigation or any wrongdoing happened.

Now, no charges have been filed in this case, and DOJ has said that no government official has -- was a subject or a target in this investigation.

[18:55:03]

So all of this raises so many more questions, Wolf, about what this scheme was all about and whether this is still an active case. And, of course, all of this comes as there's a lot of attention on pardons right now, who the President will part of. We know from sources, there's going to be a flurry of pardons before the end of his administration. And so, it certainly raises a lot of questions and we'll keep digging, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Pamela Brown reporting for us, thank you. And we'll have more news just ahead.

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BLITZER: I'm Wolf Blitzer, thanks very much for watching. I'll be back tomorrow 6:00 pm Eastern for a special edition of "The Situation Room." And Sunday night, I'll be anchoring CNN's special coverage of the Georgia Senate Debate. That's at 7:00 pm Eastern.

Erin Burnett OutFront offering starts right now.