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L.A. Ambulances Told Not To Take Patients Unlikely To Survive; Trump Lawyer On Infamous Call Is Early Backer Of Conspiracies; Voters Hitting Polls In Critical Elections. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired January 05, 2021 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Police say pharmacist Steven Brandenburg is a conspiracy theorist allegedly telling them that he believed the vaccines would change people's DNA. Brandenburg has appeared virtually in court. Here are the criminal charges that he is facing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE PAUL MALLOY, CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE: The charges of criminal damage to property in excess of $1,500.

Second-degree recklessly endangering safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD: Now, this is under investigation. Neither Brandenburg nor his attorney are commenting on this case. But overall, Brianna, this is just one case of vaccine sabotage. And remember, it's happening against a much larger backdrop of the nation facing a slow vaccine rollout and facing some concerns about having enough doses to go around. Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Jacqueline Howard, thank you for that.

And in Los Angeles one of the biggest fears surrounding the surge in COVID cases is now becoming a reality that health care will have to be rationed. With ICU capacity at zero, L.A.'s Emergency Medical Services Agency has told crews not to transport patients who have little chance of survival. EMS defines this as no pulse or signs of breathing after at least 20 minutes of resuscitation. Ambulance teams are also being told to conserve oxygen supply.

I want to bring in Dr. Robert Wachter, who is the chair of UC San Francisco's department of medicine. I mean, Dr. Wachter, this is scary, right? This is a scary low for the pandemic. These are tough decisions that no health care system would want to make. So, explain why hospitals are having to make these kinds of decisions.

DR. ROBERT WACHTER, CHAIR, UCSF DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE: Because they're packed and they're packed with COVID patients and, of course, the other patients haven't gone away. And so, when a hospital is filled, it's not only do you have enough beds, but do you have enough ventilators, ICU beds, nurses, doctors and you have to start making some tough choices.

I'm just as worried hearing about that ambulance story it's just terrible, but I'm just as worried about what it feels like in a hospital that's being overrun with patients. You start having nurses and doctors taking care of more patients than they should. They're rushed. They're stressed. And you start seeing mistakes. So, the improvements in mortality rates that we've seen with COVID, there's no guarantee that they'll continue under those kind of conditions.

KEILAR: Because you're talking about people who are you know exhausted, right? And they've been at this for months.

WACHTER: Exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, because it didn't really have to be this way. And they're doing the best they can. They're working their tails off and they've been doing it now for 10 months but at some point, the system begins to break.

You just have too many patients. They keep coming. And people start -- they have to start taking short cuts. They're not able to do the job the way they know how to do it and want to do it. And so, bad things start happening. So, the situation is just terrible.

KEILAR: There's a study that's been published just this hour by The Journal of American -- by The Journal of the American Medical Association and it actually says the virus is underreported. That the real number of infections may be four times higher and just over half of the infections were symptomatic. So, we're thinking half of them being asymptomatic. I mean that's pretty startling. Are those statistics that surprise you at all?

WACHTER: No. We've known it from the beginning. You know testing has not been as robust as it should have been. So, there's a lot of infection out there that we don't see. And that's always been COVID's superpower. In the very beginning of this, we thought you know if you screen people for a fever and if they felt bad, they got tested, you were all good.

We know that's just not true. A lot of cases go asymptomatic and that means that people can spread the virus when they feel perfectly well. But what we're also seeing is the people coming into hospitals, they are being diagnosed with COVID. We're just seeing a huge number of cases all over the country. And it really is as you're seeing in L.A. It really is overwhelming the system.

KEILAR: And we just were hearing from our reporter Jacqueline who was describing this larger backdrop of a slow vaccine rollout. You just wrote a piece. You wrote an opinion piece for "The Washington Post" saying that it's time to consider delaying that second vaccine dose. Tell us why.

WACHTER: Well, it's a complex argument. I didn't think that two weeks ago. I felt like the vaccine was going to roll out. We'll get it out to people quickly and smoothly, and the doses that were used in the clinical trials were the ones where you gave two doses first and then the second about a month later. But the evidence from the trial says that after a few weeks after the first dose it delivers pretty good protection, 80 to 90 percent protection. You get up to 95 percent with the second dose. But given the slow rollout and this new variant that now we know is in the United States and is more infectious, we're in a little bit of a race. And we're slated to have 50,000 to 100,000 Americans die this month of COVID.

[11:35:00]

And so, it struck me and my co-author, Ashish Jha, that if you could give that first dose to twice as many people quickly and defer the second dose for maybe a couple months that the benefits of that might well outweigh the risk. We hope to generate a national discussion about that. It clearly has happened. I still think it's a good idea because right now it really is -- things are out of control and the vaccine is not getting into people's arms as quickly as it needs to.

KEILAR: Look, and it speaks to these choices that I think no one really wants to be making but here is where we are. So, it certainly has generated that discussion. Dr. Wachter, thanks for being with us.

WACHTER: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Next, we're going to roll the tape on why Republicans on the same ballot as the president acknowledge their own wins but not Joe Biden's.

Plus, who is the Trump lawyer heard on that infamous call with Georgia officials? A look at how she's one of the first to embrace election conspiracies.

And we'll take you back to Georgia where voting is underway in these races that will decide the balance of power inside the Senate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:40:38]

KEILAR: Voting in Georgia's Senate runoff races is well underway, more than 3 million Georgians cast early ballots to determine control of the U.S. Senate but eyes are trained on today's turnout which could ultimately decide this outcome between Senator David Perdue and Jon Ossoff and Senator Kelly Loeffler and Reverend Raphael Warnock. So, let's check in now with our reporters who are in some crucial counties.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Martin Savidge in Savannah, Georgia. It's another one of those Democrat strong holds in the state. And when the polls opened this morning there was a line of about 10 people. Now though it's pretty quiet. In fact, it's been pretty quiet for several hours and this is supposed to be one of the peak voting periods of the day.

That said, they did set records for early voting in this county when it came to a runoff election that about doubled the turn out they normally would anticipate. So, it's estimated that roughly 30 percent of registered voters in Chatham County here have already cast their ballots. What will the rest of the day be like? We'll be here watching.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ryan Young in Cobb County, Georgia. We saw all morning long people who are energized about this vote. In fact, this morning, before 6:00 a.m. there was someone actually sitting here already in line. There was a line of more than 45 people when the polls finally did open.

Talking to voters, they told us health care was one of the things they were concerned about. They've also been upset about all of these talk about whether or not the election has been valid. That's been going on here in the state of Georgia since the election. So, they're finally happy to see this come to an end. They're hoping this election finally closes this chapter.

KEILAR: Ryan Young, Martin Savidge, thank you for those reports.

Aside from the lies, the conspiracy theories, the delusional nonsense and the desperate begging one sure fire sign that the efforts of President Trump and Republicans to challenge the presidential election are a scam is the lack of logic. If the election was rigged and the actual results are suspect, why are Trump and his allies only questioning the results in close races where he lost.

Not a peep about North Carolina. The president isn't going good fellas on tar heel Republicans. Remember the Republicans made a solid 13-seat gain in the House. And if the ballots are rigged and that's why the president and Republicans say they refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won, why are they accepting the results of their wins.

The Republican victories in the House and state races that were on the very same ballots as the president's race. If the ballots were rigged and render the presidential results illegitimate wouldn't all the races on those ballots be illegitimate? Yes, they would. But don't try explaining that to QAnon supporter, a newly sworn in Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I think our secretary of state has failed Georgia. And I believe that -- our elections should be decertified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: But when Greene was asked if decertifying the election would impact her and other Georgia Republicans who were on the same ballot as the presidential race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREENE: We're talking about the president's race.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Actually, no. We aren't just talking about the president's race because again she was on the same exact ballot as the president. Decertify his race, decertify hers. And then just hours after a top Republican official -- election official in Georgia debunked the president's conspiracy theories one by one pleading with voters in Georgia to show up that the process is not rigged. The Republican senator fighting for her seat made this declaration to Georgia voters with President Trump beside her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA): I have an announcement, Georgia. On January 6th, I will object to the Electoral College vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Kelly Loeffler has said that she thinks the vote should be investigated. But she's repeatedly dodged questions on the fraud issue. So, the votes of Georgians that put Senator Loeffler in this runoff election that she has not specifically questioned legitimacy of, should not count? Republicans are tying themselves into knots trying to back President Trump. And why?

Because they're scared of him. They're scared that he'll make pyorrhea of him to his base. And he may use all that money that he's been raising to support candidates to run against them. He sure doesn't seem to care much about these Republican Senate candidates.

[11:45:00]

Loeffler and Perdue were supposed to be the stars of the show last night and he robbed them of their best appeal to voters that they will preserve his legacy by keeping the balance of power tilted towards Republicans in the Senate. Instead, this was Trump's pitch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Kelly fights for me, David fights for me. That I could tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: But does he really fight for them? Because for months, he's been making Republican voters in Georgia wonder if there's any point to vote in this election process that he claims, wrongly, is rigged.

The president's campaign play list last night blaring songs like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "My Heart Will Go On," that theme song of the movie "Titanic." And the Senate candidates there skipped along with the president on his winding journey through Oz.

Now the only question is, will Republicans stay afloat in Georgia or will they go down with the president's sinking ship?

She is one of the key figures in the president's fight to overturn the election but who exactly is Cleta Mitchell? What we're learning about the attorney who surprised even her own law firm when she turned up on Trump's troublesome phone call.

Plus, the National Guard is being deployed to Washington tomorrow as Trump supporters get ready to gather for the Electoral College challenge.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:57]

KEILAR: It is unclear if President Trump will face legal repercussions following that threatening phone call to Georgia's secretary of state in which Trump pushed him to quote, "find votes." But others on that call are already enduring consequences.

Republican lawyer Cleta Mitchell participated in the call on the president's behalf, and the law firm where she's a partner, Foley & Lardner, is now distancing itself from her over this call.

CNN White House correspondent John Harwood is here with us now to talk about this. Tell us more about this lawyer, Cleta Mitchell. John?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, Cleta Mitchell comes from Oklahoma where she began her political career as a Democrat serving in the state legislature. And then like many conservative Democrats, especially in southern and western states, she gravitated toward the Republican Party, more conservative party.

I first came to know her in the early 1990s when she came to Washington, became an advocate for term limits. That of course was a time when Republicans were attempting to retake the Congress, especially the House, Democrats had held for four decades.

Over time, she has gotten more and more deeply embedded in conservative ideological causes and politics. So, been involved on behalf of the Tea Party, against the IRS, the National Rifle Association, working in conjunction with CPAC, and now as the president's circle of advisers has narrowed, and more and more of the establishment mainstream figures have declined to participate in his attempt to overturn the election. He's drawn people like Rudy Giuliani and now Cleta Mitchell into that cirle.

So, she was on that call that the president participated in with Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, and notably White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was not. He was keeping his distance, in fact, said he wasn't even aware of the call.

KEILAR: And now, this law firm, her law firm, is distancing itself from her.

HARWOOD: That's right. This is a very old law firm founded in the middle of the 19th century, large, international practice. Prominent conservative members of both parties have been associated with it, including former Democratic governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle, for example, and the firm even acquired a firm that Barack Obama served as a summer associate in. So, this is a firm that is not eager to plunge itself into this particular cause and that's why they've indicated their distance from Cleta Mitchell.

KEILAR: Thank you so much for explaining all of that to us, John Harwood. We appreciate it.

And President Trump's pattern of promising things in two weeks just notched another example as the clock is running out. We're going to roll the tape.

Plus, an election that will impact how much President Biden will be able to accomplish. We're live at Georgians head to the polls.

[11:57:30]

KEILAR: As we approach the series finale of the Trump presidency, he's still not letting a good tease go to waste.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Watch what happens over the next couple of weeks, you watch what's going to come out. Watch what's going to be revealed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He's literally had two months to reveal something, anything, proving their baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and he and his allies have not. But just ask the courts that reject their cases over and over. There's a pattern of President Trump promising something big in a fortnight. Roll the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're signing a health care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health care plan.

We're going to be announcing something I would say over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax. And developing our aviation infrastructure.

We have got the plan largely completed, and we'll be filing over the next two or three weeks, maybe sooner.

I'll be making a big decision on the Paris accord over the next two weeks.

I think you're going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.

So, we're doing very well in the fight against ISIS as General Mattis has just explained. We're going to be having a news conference in about two weeks to let everybody know how well we're doing.

I am putting out a tax policy paper over the next two weeks. So, we are putting them out one by one.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: He rarely follows through on these timetables. In fact, we're still waiting for that health care plan that he promised but never delivered. So, he is saying now, watch the next couple weeks. But this tired line is officially out of time. In two weeks and less than a day, we will watch Joe Biden be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States.

Hello, it is top of the hour. I am Brianna Keilar. And this is CNN special live coverage of a pivotal 48 hours in American history when Georgia voters will determine whether Democrats control all of the levers of power in Washington. And when Republican lawmakers will take the extraordinary step of trying to overturn the will of the voters.

We do begin in Georgia, where voters are hitting the polls in two runoff races that will decide who will control the Senate. If Democrats Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock win both of these races, they pick up two seats and they regain control of the Senate for Democrats.