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CNN Live Event/Special

Biden Says He's Feeling Really Optimistic that Ossoff, Warnock Will Win Georgia Runoffs; More Republicans Refuse to Object Election Results; Ted Cruze to Contest Arizona Results; Hawley to Contest Pennsylvania; Trump Pressures Mike Pence to Thwart Electoral College Vote; Study Shows U.S. Infections of COVID-19 may be 4 Time Higher Than Reported; First Case of COVID Variant for in Georgia, Among Multiple States. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 05, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

MAYOR VAN JOHNSON (D) SAVANNAH, GEORGIA: And I believe that we'll have two new Senators by the time this process is over.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Erick, to would be a pretty incredible thing to happen just to give the context here, you haven't had a Democratic Senator candidate winning in Georgia, you know, in 20 years, right. So it would be a history-making thing if you have not one, but two seats go Democratic. What are you seeing, Erick?

ERICK ERICKSON, CONSERVATIVE RADIO HOST: You know, I've talked to a lot of Republicans and Democrats across the state right now, and the presumption seems to be that David Perdue probably is going to win. No one is really sure about the Loeffler-Warnock race that's very close.

And the reason a lot of people are attributing David Perdue saying he probably wins. A couple things, one in the last couple of weeks, Jon Ossoff has essentially become Reverend Warnock's attack dog against Kelly Loeffler as it really touched David Perdue.

And down in South Georgia there are actually a number of precincts that went for Joe Biden and David Perdue in the African American farming community. He's very popular Down in South Georgia with black and white farmers because of all the

efforts he did after Hurricane Michael. And then you got the port issue in Savannah, the Mayor knows.

So Republicans are nervous but they kind of think David Perdue definitely wins and they're just not sure about the other woman. That would keep him in the Senate, they'll happy just not as happy as they would be if both won.

BURNETT: So what's interesting about that Mayor is, I mean, you know, and we don't know what we don't know, but obviously if it's a split, that's a victory for Republicans, OK, nationally, right, for the Senate. But Mayor, what are the odds that something like that happens given

the situation in Georgia right now? Right. So many people seem to see this as, you know, it's all or nothing, right? You're going to get two seats or no seats. Do you think it could split?

JOHNSON: Well, I think it's certainly conceivable, but I think the reality is that in a race where all conventional wisdom has been thrown out the window, this is totally about turnout. And we've been really excited about the fact that 3 million Georgians prior to this day have voted, 2 million of those have been in person.

Again, people recognize in Georgia, certainly here in Savannah and Chatham County the significance of this day. The day they're able to make history and certainly to have representatives that are more representative of the entire state of Georgia and not just certain interests.

BURNETT: So, Erick, when you look at what happened in November, right, history was made with Joe Biden's victory. But you saw a lot of split ticket voting. OK. You saw a lot of people, a lot of Republicans, presumably, right, who voted for Biden who then voted for Republicans on the ticket, lower on the ticket, and we don't know what will happen now. If Republicans don't win, who is to blame, though, Erick? I mean is it just -- who else do you blame other than Donald Trump?

ERICKSON: Yes, and listen, the Republicans are to blame for themselves. I mean when you look at November, Republicans got over 50 percent of all of the legislative votes combined. With David Perdue and the Libertarian, they got over 50 percent, and when you add up all the right of center Senate candidates in November, that 21-person Senate special election, the right of center candidates got 53 percent of the vote.

Now it's no coincidence that the area of the state running behind the rest of the state in turnout is north Georgia which is highly Republican and also has the QAnon Congresswoman now and others up there saying the race was stolen in November and the Republicans let the race be stolen. So yes, there's some dissatisfaction.

By the way, to the Mayor's credit, I've got to say the Democratic machine in the Chatham County area is firing on all cylinders right now. Kamala Harris was there over the weekend and the Republicans largely are conceding the ground on the coast which actually is a red flag for Republicans.

BURNETT: And let me ask you, Chatham County, Mayor I was recently in Savannah, and -- but the signs made it clear which way Savannah is leaning. But what are you expecting in the turnout? You going to do better? Is it possible that you could do better than you did in November?

JOHNSON: Well we had a phenomenal turnout in early voting and certainly absentee voting. But I think people again recognize because of COVID that it was just really easier and really more efficient. We've had some issues of some thoughts of voter suppression, so we wanted to get those votes out early. Today has been steady. People have been coming throughout the day. We

expect that once 5:00 comes, we'll again have long lines at the polls, but I think people understand, be patient, be vigilant, don't get distracted, stay focused and then let the election professionals do their job.

BURNETT: All right, Thank you, both, very much.

Next, more cracks forming in Trump's wall of Republican support on Capitol Hill ahead of this all-important Electoral College certification. Three Senators just announcing they will not back the president's efforts to overturn the election.

Plus a new study estimates coronavirus infections in this country may be four times higher than reported. As the situation in Southern California is now spinning out of control. How did it happen?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Senator Ted Cruz announcing today he will object to the state of Arizona's electoral college results tomorrow, he followed that up immediately with a fundraising email about his effort.

He joins 12 other Republicans and at least 140 House Republicans who are expected to oppose the certification of the Electoral College results in an effort to overturn President-elect Biden's win.

Manu Raju is live on Capitol Hill, so Manu, walk us through what is expected tomorrow?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, we expect a long day tomorrow but we -- the question is how long, and that ultimately will be determined by how far Republicans want to take this effort that's ultimately doomed to fail because they just simply do not have the votes to overturn the election results, at the end of the day, Joe Biden will be on his way to becoming president of the United States on January 20th.

But the way that it will work is this, that when the House convenes tomorrow in a joint session of Congress, both House and Senators will be in the House chamber.

[15:40:00]

Afterwards, each state will go through its electoral votes, and if one House member is joined by one Senator to object to those electoral votes, then each chamber will vote to recess and have a debate and actually debate for up to two hours each on each objection.

And at the end of the day, the Senators themselves and the House members will vote on whether to affirm the objection. In order to essentially throw out those electoral votes, they need a simple majority of Senators to go, and House members to vote to get rid of those electoral votes. They are not even to come close to simple majority in either chamber so those efforts will fail.

But if each -- there's up to six objections which is what the conservative House members hope. This could take 12 hours of debate and many more hours to actually go through the process of voting, cleaning the chamber and the like, and it could stretch on for days.

But Anderson, at the moment we're expecting three challenges for certain. Whether it gets up to six it still remains to be seen. We do expect Georgia, we do expect Pennsylvania and you mentioned Ted Cruz announcing that he would oppose in Arizona.

But after that, it's uncertain whether lawmakers will continue to push on this fruitless effort. Republicans are divided over this, Anderson, today behind closed doors. House Republicans debated whether to move ahead, a number of them came out opposed to the idea, and Senate Republicans, more and more of them are saying this is a bad idea. So ultimately, Anderson, they have no chance of succeeding, but they can drag it out.

COOPER: Manu Raju, appreciate it. Thanks. Busy day tomorrow.

President Trump and Vice President Pence having lunch today as the president pressures him to overturn the election results. He can't.

During his ceremonial role presiding over the Senate certification of the Electoral College tomorrow. On senior Trump adviser telling CNN that effort is likely to fail. Jim Acosta is live for us from the White House, so what more are you hearing, Jim?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson, I think reality is starting to settle in inside what's left of the Trump campaign. I talked to a senior Trump adviser earlier today who was walking me through some of the steps that Manu Raju was just talking about. Tomorrow we'll see House members object to these results, we'll see some Senators on the Republican side joining in, to essentially to boost those challenges.

But I talked to this Trump adviser earlier today who said, listen, this is not going to go very far. The vice president can only do so much constitutionally, and while these challenges will be, you know, underway throughout the day tomorrow. Anderson, I talked to this adviser who said, listen, the issue is what constitutionally can be done about it?

The president has been pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to try to throw out some of these results throughout the day tomorrow. All of our indications are at this point, Anderson, the vice president is not going to do that.

Now in addition to that this adviser said they're going to try to steer clear of some of the crazy and wild nonsense we've been hearing from some of the president's, you know, more nutty advisers, people like Sidney Powell and so on that we've been hearing from over the last several weeks. In the words of this adviser, this is not going to be all of this Sidney Powell craziness, quote, unquote, is what this adviser said. And that they're trying to put on what they consider to be the more credible evidence what they deem to be election irregularities.

But Anderson, as we've been point out, and Erin as we've been point out, time and again, throughout this entire process since the November third election, the Trump campaign, the Trump team has not put forward any credible evidence of widespread voter fraud. So this is sounding a lot less like an attempted coup tomorrow and more like an exercise in futility.

BURNETT: Yes, certainly so, yes obviously, you know, Bill Barr even said, right, he looked at it, investigated it, and no sign whatsoever of widespread fraud that would impact the outcome of the election.

OK, so let's go to former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman.

So Harry, you hear Jim's reporting, Manu's reporting. And yet, you know, President Trump goes to Dalton, Georgia last night and pressures Pence. Saying, you know, he hopes that Pence, quote, you know, comes through for him tomorrow. And the President today has tweeted, quote, the vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors. Does Pence have any power here?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: The short answer is no. So Trump doesn't understand the Constitution, of course, and he did tweet, I'll like him less. Even if -- even if, Erin, Pence wanted to try to channel the president, even if he opened the envelope from Arizona that announced votes for Biden and said, therefore, Trump, he can't do it. He's utterly impotent here.

If he tried to do it, he would be swiftly rebuffed by the Senate itself and the House. He can only stand by. It's a strictly ceremonial role where he is the emcee. I've analogized it in the past to the Academy Award presenters.

But there's nothing he can do but there will be this exquisite drama at the end of it, might be Thursday, might be Friday where he has to say these most loathed of words to President Trump which is, the next president of the United States is Joe Biden.

[15:45:03]

BURNETT: OK, so now you're saying, you know, that you can take a couple days here with machinations, but the bottom line, Harry, you know, the president has moved the goal post here successfully, right. First it was deny the whole thing, then it was wait for the Electoral College. Then it was turning this January 6th, which is nothing into something, you know, then he's going to try for something else. Is there any situation under which the election is still in dispute after this?

LITMAN: I think this it. Next would only be troops in the street, Erin, and martial law. He's done. He's pointed to this as big date, but as everyone agrees, there's nothing that Pence can do, and I actually think tomorrow will be kind of anticlimactic.

I think you'll see Cruz and Hawley retreat to a position of we just wanted to air certain concerns, I don't think you'll see six two-hour debates. But to answer your question directly, no, he's finished unless he wants to, you know, try to call out the military and we know that they would rebuff him. He's tried hard, but his hand is now played, nothing more to do.

BURNETT: All right, Harry, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And next we'll go to Los Angeles where hospitals at this hour at a breaking point, that so many predicted could happen. It is now happening, and cases are still surging. They have a 30 percent jump in just a week.

And breaking news, the contagious strain of coronavirus now discovered in another state. Safe to say it's a lot of places. We now know New York and now we know at this moment it has been found in Georgia. We have more details after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:00]

COOPER: Coronavirus may be even more widespread in the U.S. than we thought, that's according to a new study that says the number of people infected with the virus could be up to four times higher than reported.

In California where the state reports the virus has claimed nearly 30,000 lives so far. Hospitals are being pushed to the brink. Nick Watt in Los Angeles with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Los Angeles County the COVID-19 burden on hospitals is so great that EMTs are under orders. If certain cardiac arrest victims after attempts to resuscitate show no signs of survival, they should be determined dead on scene and not transported.

Ambulances waiting hours to drop patients who are transported.

UNIDENTIFIED EMT: The next couple of weeks we're going to get more. I think we're going to be in some trouble.

WATT (voice-over): Over in Daytona Beach, Florida --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be able to see my kids and my grandchildren.

WATT (voice-over): Seniors camped in their cars overnight to be the first in line for the vaccine this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: We've seen it in Duvall, Broward, Orange and Lee County.

GOV. RONALD DESANTIS (R-FL): Why was like in Lee, why did that happen? Did you investigate why?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: That was my question to you, Governor. You're the Governor of the state. I'm not the Governor of the state.

DESANTIS: We distributed vaccine to hospitals. And the hospitals said, first come, first serve. If you show up, we'll do it.

WATT (voice-over): Like most states, Florida has reported actually administering just a fraction of the doses delivered.

DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, FOUNDER OF PANDEFENSE ADVISORY: It's much slower than we expected or hoped. We're going to have a rough time in the next couple of months and we face the possibility that we will have to do a shutdown again.

WATT (voice-over): A record-setting 128,000 Americans are already in the hospital and the number of tests coming back positive proves we are nowhere near getting this virus under control.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT, TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: This looks very much the way it started back in March and April in New York City and it's almost as if we haven't learned anything and this is a humanitarian catastrophe now unfolding in Los Angeles. And I worry it won't stop in Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (on camera): And you know what's freaking a lot of people out is this idea of having to limit care. One nurse told us he didn't train to limit care, he trained to help people. And EMTs here in L.A. are now also being told to limit who they give oxygen to because oxygen is in such short supply -- Anderson.

COOPER: That's what health care workers have been fearful of during this entire pandemic. Nick, appreciate it.

Coming up next, breaking news, Georgia joining a growing number of states now reporting cases of that new more contagious strain of coronavirus. We'll have details on that next.

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[15:55:00]

BURNETT: Breaking news, the first case of the highly contagious U.K. variant now has been identified in Georgia. We're just finding this out moments ago.

So they've just confirmed a case, a young man, I believe, 18 years old, no travel history whatsoever which now makes the obvious question of just how widespread this variant is? Of course it is a much more highly transmissible contagious version than the original.

Joining me now, Dr. William Shaffner, Professor at Vanderbilt and also on the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. So Dr. Shaffner, you know now we know this is in Georgia so now we know New York, we know California, we know Colorado, we know Georgia. In the U.K. they sequence testing. Right, so they can say this person has this variant, this person doesn't. We basically don't. So the fact that we even know about these individual cases in four corners of the country, does that mean it's safe to say this is, indeed, everywhere in the U.S.?

DR. WILLIAM SHAFFNER, CDC's ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON IMMUNIZATION PRACTICES: I was about to use that word, Erin. Yes, we can decide that it's everywhere. We can make that assumption and it may well be contributing to this surge in cases we're seeing all over the country. Which of course was augmented by people getting together in the holidays offering this virus even more opportunities to spread, which it knows how to do.

BURNETT: So let me ask you about this because I know that, you know, the practices that we all know work, work with any version of this. But when it's more highly contagious, what does that mean or do we even know in terms of its ability to, you know, get through certain types of masks or live on surfaces or all these questions, right? Or do we not even know the answers to that?

SHAFFNER: The answer is that we produce more virus, so we shed it out more and that means if you're close in, you're more likely to catch it. So it hasn't got anything to do very much with the surfaces we don't think, it's just that the individuals who are infected put out more virus, which means more people can catch it more easily.

BURNETT: All right. That's really important just for people to understand these basics. And as you point out, it could be contributing to some of -- the 30 percent surge in hospitalizations in L.A. in one week. It's safe to ask the question as to whether it's related. We don't know at all, but I know they're fair questions.

It's a race against time, doctor. You've got something like this happening, more highly contagious disease. Someone had said, you know, you could lose 200,000 more lives just because of something that spreads more quickly but is not more virulent. And the vaccine rollout obviously has been subpar thus far, significantly so. What can be done to change that?

SHAFFNER: Well, you know what I'm going to say, Erin, because I say it all the time. We can put up a stop sign to this virus if we would all wear the masks, social distance, don't go to groups, go back home and don't give this virus an opportunity to get from an infected person to the next person. That's the key. Everybody please, wear the mask.

BURNETT: All right, Dr. Shaffner, I appreciate your time very much. Thank you, sir.

SHAFFNER: My pleasure.

BURNETT: Some sobering news confirming an 18-year-old man in Georgia does have that U.K. variant. So that's now the fourth confirmed state where it's present.