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Congress Scrambles To Reach COVID-19 Relief Deal; Heated Oval Office Meeting Included Talk Of Martial Law To Overturn Election; Surge In New Cases Adds Renewed Strain On Hospitals In California; CDC Committee Votes To Recommend Moderna Vaccine For Emergency Use; "The Great Influenza" Author On Lessons From 1918 Pandemic. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired December 19, 2020 - 20:00   ET

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

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[20:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world him. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM.

There is breaking news we're following tonight in the war against the deadly coronavirus pandemic. A second vaccine authorized for use against COVID is waiting in the wings right now, ready for distribution across the country, starting tomorrow. The new vaccine made by Moderna just needs final approval from the director of the CDC to start shipping out. A CDC committee or advisors gave its final recommendation for approval earlier today.

The optimism from health officials about the approved vaccines is weighed against the heartbreaking numbers of people in the U.S. who are newly sick and dying from the coronavirus. More than 18,000 Americans died from COVID in just the past seven days, 18,000 Americans dead from COVID in a week.

An emergency medicine doctor tells CNN that right now, there are no longer coronavirus hot spots in the United States. The entire country, the entire country is now a hot spot with one American dying from the pandemic every 30 seconds.

And there's also breaking news tonight from Washington. We are learning some stunning new details of talks in the White House that turned into screaming matches. One unbelievable subject discussed during a meeting in the Oval Office on Friday with President Trump in attendance was using martial law, believe this or not, martial law to help try to overturn the democratically held presidential election in the United States.

Those in the room included the former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who the president recently pardoned, and it was Flynn who first raised the idea of martial law while appearing at a right- wing cable TV show earlier in the week. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: He could order the -- within the swing states if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. So, I mean, it's not unprecedented. I mean, these people out there talking about martial law it's like that it's something that we've never done, we've done -- martial law has been instituted 64, 64 times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The New York Times was first to report about this truly remarkable Oval Office meeting that's so, so disturbing. Our Political Analyst, Maggie Haberman, helped break the story for The Times. She's joining us on the phone right now.

Maggie, take us through what you know about this meeting.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST (voice over): Sure, Wolf. Thanks for having me. So this meeting began last night in the Oval Office. It went on through a very long time. There were people on the phone, there were people coming in and out.

But the two key players who were there, who were trying to influence the president's thinking, were Sidney Powell, the attorney who used to be working with the Trump legal team in the efforts to overturn the election results to prove wide spread fraud, which they haven't done, and Lieutenant General Flynn, Retired Lieutenant General Flynn, who had been the national security adviser, who the president pardoned recently but, as you say, was on T.V. making this pitch for use of martial law.

The president not just when it came up last night, as my understanding. The president asked about it and it was pushed back on by everybody in the room. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and particularly, Pat Cipollone, the White House Counsel, were very forceful in saying Powell should not be some kind of special counsel appointed serving in the White House.

The president talked about getting her a security clearance to allow her to do her work. Various other officials in the administration came in also said this shouldn't happen.

Sidney Powell, at some point, when she was pushed by others who said you keep alleging fraud but you've shown no proof. She brandished a bunch of affidavits that also had a person, had a witness whose credentials that come into question.

It didn't appear to end with her getting appointed but it left a lot of Trump advisers alarmed about him reaching a new place in his quest to try to question the results of the election with just a few days left of his term.

BLITZER: Yes, with just a few weeks ago that the Trump campaign actually fired her, Sidney Powell, you remember that, right?

HABERMAN: That's right. That's exactly right. In fact, at the time, we were told that she was too conspiratorial even for the president as she appeared at a press conference with Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, another Trump campaign lawyer, where she alleged a wild plot involving Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to rig Dominion System Voting Machines.

[20:05:16]

Officials of Dominion Systems have urged her to retract those statements. They know they are facing the campaign some potential legal action based on that and here she was back in the White House with the president who's been talking to her at other points, by the way, Wolf, throughout this past week. This wasn't a one-off meeting.

BLITZER: Yes.

HABERMAN: So the president looking to find people who will affirm what he wants to hear, which is that the election was rigged, that there was widespread fraud, none of which has been proven. And, in fact, these cases have been tossed out of court. Again, there is four weeks to go. It's going to be a very long four weeks.

BLITZER: Yes, 32 days, specifically, until January 20th.

You're also reporting, Maggie, that the meeting in the White House included talked of seizing voting machines across the country. What can you tell us about that?

HABERMAN: Sure. So, apparently, Sidney Powell talked about an executive order by which the machines could be seized. That was also pushed back on. Cipollone, the White House counsel, repeatedly said that what Sidney Powell who's working for had no constitutional basis.

But we should note that Giuliani, who was on the phone for part of the meeting and then showed up in person for the rest of it, according to a source who was briefed on it, Giuliani was not in favor of the executive order.

But Giuliani did call Ken Cuccinelli, the head of DHS, the acting DHS Secretary, earlier this week to urge him to have DHS use whatever authority it could to seize voting machines to exam them across the country as part of some effort at an audit. And Cuccinelli had to say it very bluntly, DHS does not have the authority to do that, that's just not possible.

BLITZER: Yes, good for Cuccinelli to say that.

The president clearly won't acknowledge what the Electoral College has officially recognized, namely that Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States. He will become the president on January 20th. Trump will become the former president on January 20th. Do many in the west wing share the president's denial of reality right now?

HABERMAN: No. Most of the people in the west wing think that, you know, as angry as they are at the media or they feel as if there are, you know, instances of fraud, almost all of them acknowledge that it is not widespread, certainly not widespread enough to change the results of the election, something that Bill Barr, the outgoing attorney general, has said publicly in recent weeks.

Most of them are concerned about the damage that the president is doing both in terms of impact on the country and impact on his own legacy in his final days.

BLITZER: Do you think he's doing this mostly to raise money so he'll have -- right now, he's raced since the election, what, $200 million for his various campaigns, that he wants to raise another hundred million between January 20th. If he keeps talking about how unfair, what a fraud this was, a rigged election, people are going to give him money, is that why he's doing this?

HABERMAN: No. I mean, I think he likes that what he sees as the benefit of a fundraising tactic, but I think that he was thrashing around because he is having trouble accepting the facts. There's nothing else in his life that he's not been able to kind of find some escape hatch for him or sue his way out of, and that's not happening. As you said, in been four and a half weeks, Joe Biden is going to be sworn in as president and there should nothing Donald Trump can do about that.

So I think it's as much about him facing reality he doesn't want to face. And that is a calculation I can make a lot of money. I think that's certainly a benefit that he and some of his adviser see, but I don't think that that's the main purpose.

BLITZER: Excellent reporting as usual from Maggie Haberman. Maggie, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

HEBERMAN: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Joining us now, another former national security adviser in the Trump White House, John Bolton, he's also a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. And he's the author of the best- selling book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir."

Ambassador Bolton, thank you so much for joining us.

Give us your reaction to the details of this Oval Office meeting, this talk, hard to believe here in the United States of America, talk of martial law being imposed to try to overturn a democratically held election, talked -- that was promoted by one of your predecessors, one of the president's former national security advisers, Michael Flynn.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Yes. Well, at least a few national security advisers have read the Constitution. Look, this is appalling. There's no other way to describe it. It's unbelievable, almost certainly completely without precedent.

But I think it's important to understand, this is just another day at the office at the oval. This is just another day at the office. There is a theory out there, I know, that Trump is getting worse as January the 20th approaches, no, he's not. It's the same behavior repeated over and over again.

[20:10:02] Let's take the idea of putting military capabilities into the swing states and running the election again.

Look, there's a difference between incompetence and malevolence. And in Trump's case, this is incompetence. He's unfit for the job. I don't think he's ever read the Constitution. If he has, he clearly doesn't understand it. And if he did understand it at one point, he's forgotten it. That's why the burden again and again falls on senior advisers to push him back and rein in.

And I would just suggest since there a lot of the members of Congress up on the Hill, particularly Republicans, this would be a good night to talk about the Constitution and why the president can't invoke martial law.

BLITZER: If you have been in the Oval Office and heard something like that going ahead and trying to impose martial law to overturn the results of a democratically held election, that Biden won, by the way, by more than 7 million votes, how would you have reacted in the Oval Office in a meeting like that?

BOLTON: Well, I think you have to tell him that it's unconstitutional to even think along those lines. I did have conversations with him when he suggested repeatedly wanted John Kerry prosecuted for violating the Logan Act by interfering in our dealings with Iran. This is ironic given Mike Flynn was in there, he was threatened with prosecution under the Logan Act.

It's not easy for those who actually know how the Constitution works what the normal rules are here but that's what they need to do and, apparently, at least some of them have been doing it.

BLITZER: I want to turn to this other major story coming out of the White House right now, Ambassador. The president actually, hard to believe, contradicting his own secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on the massive hacking of U.S. government agencies, still thought to be under way, even as we speak.

The president today baselessly suggested that China could be involved and he tweeted that just one day after the secretary of state, Pompeo, made clear what so many other experts in the U.S. intelligence community agree on, that Russia is the prime suspect. That's what -- that's what he said.

The view is shared by the acting Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Senator Marco Rubio. Why is the president refusing to call out Russia for this latest attack? Everybody except him believes it was Russia. He is suggesting it was China.

BOLTON: Yes. Well, let me just say first, if I might, this attack, the full extent of which we don't know and may not know for some time, is a huge event. It's a huge event. It didn't just happen this week. It didn't just begin in March of this year. It didn't even begin a year or two ago.

This is a reflection of decades of misapprehension of what cyberspace is. And it should tell us right now if we haven't appreciated before, cyberspace is not a benign place. Cyberspace is a war fighting domain and we are losing to the Russians at least and maybe others.

So here, we have Donald Trump, as I say, it's just another day at the Oval Office, contradicting the secretary of state, nothing new there. That's for sure. Plenty of us have been contradicted by him. Why, why does he continue to find no fault with Russia?

I think it goes back to his view that if he acknowledges that Russia does anything maligning the United States, it relates back to and undercuts the legitimacy of his election in 2016. It has been explained to him countless times that that chain of logic is wrong.

And then, in fact, it would strengthen his hand if he acknowledged the reality that Russia messed with our electoral system in 2016. In my view, it was an act of war against the Constitution, which they continue to do.

If he acknowledged it and really helped the rest of the government take the strong steps against Russia that we were trying to take, it would reinforce in people's minds that he understood the threat that Russia posed and that it had nothing to do with his election in 2016. But he's never accepted that.

BLITZER: You saw that, you and I witnessed that when you were in the White House in the Oval Office with him in THE SITUATION ROOM. Let's say we would go into the White House Situation Room. You were there when he refused to say anything negative at all about Putin or Russia?

BOLTON: Yes. Look, it is hard to understand. I fully acknowledge it. I think part of it is he wants to be a big guy like these other big guys, Putin, Erdogan, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un. It's much more fun to be a big guy than be a regularly elected president.

[20:15:04]

But I want to say this, for all those who say he must be in Moscow's pay, maybe he is, provide some evidence. Otherwise, you're doing the same thing as Donald Trump himself, saying the election was stolen. As soon as there's evidence, people can consider it. There's still no evidence he's in Moscow's pay and it really it doesn't contribute to the accurate critique of Donald Trump when people keep saying that.

BLITZER: Ambassador Bolton, thanks, as usual, for joining us.

BOLTON: Glad to do it.

BLITZER: All right. While a second coronavirus vaccine rolls out today, California is seeing hospitalizations in the state skyrocket right now amid a surge in new cases that is adding renewed strain on hospitals already near the brink. We'll go live to get the latest when we come back.

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[20:20:00] BLITZER: In California this weekend, public health officials are strongly urging people across the state. In fact, they're begging them, to follow the coronavirus guidance aimed at trying to slow the spread of the virus. That's because doctors are telling CNN that the number of new cases and people who need hospital beds right now are rising faster than they've seen in months.

CNN's Paul Vercammen is joining us right now from Los Angeles. Paul, share with our viewers of what the overwhelmed doctors are telling you acts the people coming to their hospitals.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're shocked to see that so many of them, Wolf, are fighting for their lives. Here at Providence, Tarzana, the head of the intense care unit started a shift at 2:00 A.M., and he walked in and he was horrified by it being jammed with patients who were, again, in very, very serious condition.

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DR. THOMAS YADEGAR, ICU DIRECTOR, PROVIDENCE CEDARS-SINAI TARZANA MEDICAL CENTER: It's been horrible, Paul. This is, by far, the worst that it's been in the past nine months, no matter how hard we try to get patients better to stabilize them. And, hopefully, we get patients home. It seems like there's another four patients who are sicker waiting for that same bed.

The patients are coming in much sicker than the past four months and a lot of them are getting intubated in the emergency room.

They notice that the hospitals are being overwhelmed and they're just trying to wait. I had a patient this past week who waited too long. And I asked, why are you not coming in earlier? And it broke my heart. But what he said was, I didn't want to take someone else's bed. I didn't want to take someone else's bed. I thought that someone is going to be sicker and needed it more.

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VERCAMMEN: That patient all part of these awful numbers in California, more than 43,000 new cases, 272 deaths, about 18,000 hospitalizations, but the important number is 3,500 people in intensive care units here in California. It's just a daunting task for these doctors and nurses. And they're telling me they're getting by on raw adrenaline. And one of (INAUDIBLE) said, he's going to have nine cups of coffee today on what seems an unending shift.

Back to you now, Wolf.

BLITZER: As you can see more than 316,000 Americans have died from COVID since February, a really awful situation. Paul, thank you very much.

Even as a second COVID vaccine from Moderna gets closer to a roll out across the United States, coronavirus continues its relentless march around the world. There is disturbing news that British researchers have identified a new and more virulent strain of the coronavirus. They say it's up to 70 percent more contagious.

CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Seema Yasmin is joining us right now. I want to mention she has a timely new book just coming next month entitled Viral B.S., Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them. Dr. Yasmin, thank you so much for joining us, looking forward to reading the new book.

When you hear that a potentially more contagious strain of this virus has been identified, what exactly does that mean?

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: So, Wolf, the U.K.'s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, first announced news of this new variant on Monday. And since then, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has spoken quite definitively about this virus being more contagious, even saying 70 percent more transmissible.

But in the last days, I've talked to a virologist who say we need to be more open and transparent about what we know and don't know and they think actually it's too soon to say that this virus is that's much more transmissible, that it's responsible for the 40 percent increase in cases the U.K. seen in the last week. They believe that has less to do with the virus itself and much more to do with human behavior. That's an interesting point to note.

We do think that based on the current numbers, these new variant does not seem to cause more severe disease, doesn't seem to cause more hospitalizations or more deaths, so that's good news compared to other variants because there have been other mutated versions of this virus, this one has more mutations, about 23 in total, including some on the spike protein.

So it's currently being investigated and questioned whether that could impact the vaccine. Right now, people I've spoken to say they don't think so but, again, some questions remain unanswered about this new variant.

BLITZER: It's interesting. I want to talk about the vaccine rollout, Dr. Yasmin. And Moderna soon will join Pfizer maybe as early as tomorrow at clinics, but there's protests erupting at some hospitals amid claims that some hospital executives who don't have contact with patients are actually getting vaccines ahead of those on the frontlines. When you hear those reports, what are your thoughts?

YASMIN: I'm very disturbed by that, Wolf, because ethical allocation of scarce vaccine doses is so important. It's really important that those on the front lines caring for COVID patients day in and day out or driving the buses that transport doctors and nurses to and from hospitals, those folks need to be first in line.

[20:25:00]

What I think we've seen happen is people build overly simple algorithms that pull out age as one of the biggest risk factors and just plug that in. and then what happens is that kind of algorithm selects for an older doctor and older nurse perhaps who's working from home versus the younger physicians, nurses, respiratory techs, all of those folks who are actually caring for COVID patients all day. And so there needs to be really careful analysis because it's complicated when it comes to doing vaccine allocations absolutely ethically.

And you fall into situations like do we give the vaccine to those to the 85-year-old man who's house bound, do we give it to the 60-year- old man who drives buses, who keeps the economy going, who keeps moving people around city? So it's really complicated. And I can see why there's been so much outrage in the last few days.

BLITZER: Yes, I suspect there will be more down the road.

The Los Angeles Times, Dr. Yasmin, talked to a doctor in Beverly Hills who said his practice is getting hundreds of calls a day from wealthy clients wanting to know if they can actually go and buy a vaccine or make a donation to get a vaccine. How do you police something like that to ensure that people with money and connections don't cut the line ahead of people who really need the vaccine first and foremost?

YASMIN: Unfortunately, it's hard to inoculate against both a virus and selfishness but people really need to understand that there are folks on the frontlines, whether it's in grocery stores or in hospitals, who are much more exposed, some who are at higher risk of severe disease, they need to be first in line when there's only a finite number of doses.

And, Wolf, I've been hearing this from various hospital CEOs telling me that billionaire donors have been saying, hey, we've been giving you a hospital money, can you put us front in line. And they've been saying, no, that's not how this works. So it's troubling to hear that but we have scarce doses right now. It's going to be many months before everyone can get vaccinated.

In the meantime it has to be those folks keeping us healthy, alive and keeping our economy functioning.

BLITZER: Dr. Yasmin, as always thank you so much. And, once again, I just want to show our viewers you have a brand-new book coming out. There you see it, right there, Viral B.S., Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them, once again, looking forward to it. It's coming out next month. Thank you so much for joining us.

YASMIN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Coming up, millions of Americans are struggling right now and lawmakers have sadly but unable to come up with a deal on much needed relief. We have new details about the negotiations going on in Capitol Hill this hour.

We'll be right back.

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[20:30:02]

BLITZER: For months, Congress has been deadlocked over an additional COVID stimulus package that is so desperately needed by millions and millions of Americans who are suffering right now. And lawmakers are finally potentially on the cusp of a major deal. But there's a new roadblock that just emerged that threatens to derail everything. This, once again, as millions of Americans are getting ready for the holiday season. Desperate for economic relief right now.

Our senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju has been working the sources up on Capitol Hill. So, Manu, what's the latest? Where do things stand?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, we do expect negotiations to continue through the night into tomorrow morning. And some key decisions are going to be have to be made tomorrow about whether they can finally get a deal after days and days of haggling after months of stalemate, partisan bickering and no action from Capitol Hill for several months. They could potentially get a deal if they can get around some final roadblocks.

One of the biggest roadblocks right now is how to deal with a push by Republican senators to pare back the Federal Reserve's emergency lending authority. This is something that came together in the March stimulus log. Republicans are concerned about continuing with this emergency lending program believe that under the existing statute, it was meant to be wound down and arguing that if it were to continue into the Biden administration, it could be used as a slush fund.

That's not how Democrats see it. They say it's necessary to continue to respond to the economic crisis. So, they're going back and forth over that language. And, Pat Toomey, who's the chief sponsor of that language on the Republican side, is having discussions with the Senate Minority Leader, the Democrat, Chuck Schumer. We'll see if they're able to resolve that.

Other Democrats are also involved, and if they come to an agreement that potentially other pieces could fall into place. Now, this proposal is huge, $900 billion. It would include direct payments for individuals for $600. Also, it would also have 300 hours a week in jobless benefits.

So many people are seeing those expire, Wolf, in just a matter of days. And how do you deal with spills small business more than $300 billion in loans going to them, vaccine distribution, the school money, and the like. So, so much is riding on this now, but it's time for lawmakers to decide if they can get a deal, if not, they may have to punt once again, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, that would be so, so sad. People are in desperate need right now. Manu, thank you very much. You're doing excellent reporting for us up on Capitol Hill.

Let's bring in our senior political analyst and senior editor at the Atlantic, Ron Brownstein. Right now, Ron, the negotiations over another stimulus, it's really, as you heard Manu report, it's been going on for months now. And there's still some hang ups even at this late moment, days before Christmas. Do you think this is a preview of what we're going to see with Congress in the Biden era?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. I mean, I think the fact that they are having so much difficulty for so many months, finding a way to come together on this. When the need is so obvious and immediate, is an indication of how tough this is going to be.

And the fact that Republicans have drawn an absolute red line against, A, two-state and local governments, you know, in this view that kind of blue -- that cities have become kind of the cornerstone of the Democratic coalition, at the same time that the President is alleging systemic fraud in large urban centers.

[20:35:20]

I mean, all of that points to some of the structural problems that Biden will face. And I think kind of the paradox here, Wolf, is that obviously, the need is enormous. And again, as we said, immediate, and for that reason, the incoming Biden administration wants a deal.

But if they do get a deal in these final weeks, I think you can be pretty sure that Mitch McConnell, in early 2021, is going to tell the new president, I already gave at the office, when Biden comes back looking for a bigger and what economists say is necessary package for the economy.

BLITZER: Yes, people are in desperate need right now here in the United States. Do you think, Ron, that President-elect Biden should be taking a more vocal role right now advancing Democrats demands in these talks? Or is he wise to leave it largely to the existing democratic congressional leadership?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. I think, look, there's one president at a time, and there's only so far that he can or should go on these negotiations. I'm sure he's making his preferences clear privately to the Democratic leadership. But, you know, it's interesting, when he gave his speech last week after the Electoral College voted, and his victory speech, he kind of gave us kind of a new sense of where he is in terms of his thinking about Congress.

Because, you know, the second half of the speech was the familiar arguments that we have heard from you all the way through the campaign. His belief that he is going to be able to work with Republicans and restore more bipartisan cooperation than we have seen in many years in Washington.

But the first half of the speech had a very different tone than we've heard from Biden. During the campaign, he presented Donald Trump more as an aberration than a culmination of Republican thinking. He kind of separated Trump from the party. In the first half of the speech, this speech, though, he made clear for that, really, for the first time, how much of the Republican Party has followed Donald Trump down his undemocratic road since the election of trying to subvert the results.

And I found myself listening to that speech and the tension between the first half and the second half and thinking the obvious question, is the Republican Party he described in the first half of the speech, the Republican Party that is radicalized to the point where it's following Donald Trump, really capable or interested in the kind of cooperation he talked about, again in the second half of the speech. And again, that is the question that I think is being raised by this protracted stalemate over coronavirus relief.

BLITZER: As you correctly pointed out, the president-elect, he did vow to work with the Republicans. He thinks he could get across the aisle. This Week in the Atlantic you wrote about whether that's a realistic goal. What's your take?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, I think, you know, as Senator Chris Murphy said to me, people have underestimated Joe Biden for the last year and a half. So, I'm not going to write off the possibility that he can find more agreements with Republicans that now seem possible. But there are a lot of Democrats who are skeptical that he is going to get be able to get anywhere near the cooperation that he expects.

For one thing, if Republicans hold the majority, even if he gets four or five Republicans to come along with some of his ideas, what are the chances that Mitch McConnell, if he's in control of the calendar, is going to allow something to come up for a vote that the vast majority of his caucus opposes? Probably very little.

The structural problem that Biden faces is that the partitioning of the country, in effect, that we are seeing, leaves him with very little leverage over Republican senators. I mean, there are 25 states that voted both times for Donald Trump, 47 of the Republican senators are from those states that did not vote for the Democrats in either of the last two elections.

There's not a lot of leverage that Biden has over those Republicans. There's only one Republican left in the 20 states that voted both times for Democrats in the last two elections and that's Susan Collins in Maine.

So, he -- you know, look as Chris Murphy said, you know, betting against Joe Biden after the last year, I'm not willing to do it, but there are a lot of Democrats who wonder whether the cooperation is going to be anything like he expects, and are asking whether he is ready for the more partisan Washington that now will be there to greet him.

BLITZER: Ron Bronstein, as usual, thank you so much for joining us.

Coming up, the 1918 great influenza pandemic may have killed -- may have killed 100 million people. So, as we wrestled with how to end this pandemic, could there be a lesson from a century ago that could save lives today? Stay with us, you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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[20:40:42]

BLITZER: At any moment now, the second coronavirus vaccine could get the green light to be rolled out to hospitals and clinics all across the country for emergency use. The CDC Advisory Committee voted today to recommend the Moderna vaccine. And CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield is expected to give the OK later this weekend. It's another historic moment as America and the world fight this grave and deadly battle. We want to get some perspective tonight from a leading expert on the pandemic of 1918. John Barry is the author of the best-selling book, "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History." John is joining us right now here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Thanks so much for writing the book. Thanks for everything you're doing, John. So, what did you think as you watch all those scenes from across the country this week of the Pfizer vaccine finally beginning to reach Americans?

JOHN BARRY, AUTHOR, "THE GREAT INFLUENZA": Miraculous ending almost as everyone else has said, the idea that you sequence a genome on January 10th. And you know a few months later you actually are delivering vaccines that have 95 percent efficacy, that's absolutely extraordinary.

[20:45:00]

BLITZER: Totally extraordinary. I'm going to show our viewers the toll from the 1918 pandemic. Look at this, it that includes 675,000 deaths here in the United States alone. We're almost at half that number in the coronavirus pandemic. More than 316,000 Americans, so far, have died since February. Why haven't we been able to get rid of the flu a century later?

BARRY: You're asking about the flu or COVID?

BLITZER: Well, the flu, because the flu, you know, in 1918, that's what killed so many people.

BARRY: OK. Well, the flu -- right. The flu mutates very, very rapidly, much more rapidly than COVID-19. The best vaccine we have ever had against influenza is 62 percent effective. Usually, it's 40 or 50 percent effective. A couple of times in the last 10 years, it's been 10, 20 percent effective.

So, the 95 percent for COVID gives me an idea of just how great and accomplishment that is. But the real reason is, is the difference in the mutation rates. And the sudden spike protein and COVID doesn't mutate much. And the antigens and influenza, you take very, very rapidly. They're some of the fastest moving parts of the virus. So, you need new vaccine every year and so forth.

BLITZER: Yes, that's really important information. It's not too late for people to go get the flu vaccine right now.

Back in 1918, and you wrote a terrific book on the whole subject -- there obviously wasn't a flu vaccine. But given skepticism about science at that time, do you think people would have actually taken it?

BARRY: I think they would have. Medicine back then had had -- was just beginning to emerge from the dark ages and had -- was performing miracles, say it developed anti-toxins against diphtheria. They didn't have any antibiotics, but they had vaccines against all sorts of diseases. You know, public health measures were sophisticated in, you know, controlling cholera. So, I think there was a lot of respect. And in fact, they did develop vaccines, but they were against the wrong pathogen, so they weren't effective. But they were very widely administered. And there was very little evidence of people resisting them back then.

One of the reasons, of course, is that that virus was much more lethal than COVID-19. And people that PKH for death was in the 20s, two- thirds of the people who died were 18 to 45. So, you didn't have anybody thinking it was a hoax, people could die as little as 12 hours after the first symptoms. It was taken very seriously and any help people could get, they grasp that.

BLITZER: Are there any other lessons from that pandemic? You're an expert on that, that we should review as far as handling the current pandemic?

BARRY: Well, I think there are two lessons, the biggest lesson is to tell the truth. Some countries have done that very well in this pandemic, and they've done very well as a result. The second lesson is that what we call non-farmers who go to pseudo interventions, you know, the social distancing, ventilation, hand washing, mask, and so forth.

They -- some of the planning for response to this pandemic came out of studying what happened back in 1918, and cities that did that recovered, you know, much better economically and had fewer deaths. I think anybody in public health right now will tell you, they are astounded. And we have demonstrated how effective public health measures alone can be in containing a pandemic. Unfortunately, we haven't done that in this country. Other countries have done it.

Not just, you know, Japan, or Taiwan, or Singapore, but Australia, for which has a culture much like ours. Germany has done a lot better than we have. Canada has done a lot better than we have. So, those measures work. And if only we would use them, we would have a lot fewer deaths in the past and going forward.

BLITZER: Well, thank you for everything you're doing. John Barry, appreciate it, very, very much.

And an important note to our viewers coming up. Join Anderson Cooper to learn how the country defeated the 1918 pandemic. The new CNN special report, "Pandemic: How a Virus Changed the World in 1918," that starts right at the top of the hour. We'll be right back.

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BLITZER: Thanks. Thanks very much for joining us. I'll be back with another special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM tomorrow 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

Before we go, we want to pay tribute to some victims of the coronavirus pandemic. Mayor Johnnie Natt was serving in a second term as mayor of Mangham, Louisiana, a loving grandfather. Mayor Natt was also a former principal and basketball coach who had deep ties to his community. He died of complications from COVID-19 on Monday at the age of 71.

Jesse Taken Alive was a teacher and the former chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe is students in McLaughlin, South Dakota called him Lala Jay. Lala is the Lakota word for grandfather. Jesse Taken Alive passed away Monday, about a month after his wife succumbed to the virus. He was 65. May they rest in peace, and may their memories be a blessing.

[20:55:21]

The new CNN special report, "Pandemic: How a Virus Changed the World in 1918," starts right at the top of the hour.

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