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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  December 11, 2020 5:00pm-6:00pm PST

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and have the breaking news rejecting trump overturning the election. let's turn it over to anderson cooker. good evening, the president of the united states calling the supreme court for courage, over turning the election he so clearly lost. he got his answer from the supreme court, no. the court rejecting by the state of texas and stunningly joined by 126 house republicans to overturn all the votes, in michigan, wisconsin and georgia. state of texas motion to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of understanding under the article iii of constitution. all pending motions are dismissed as moot.
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justice aledo. i would grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant to other relief and i express no view on any other issue. the last major legal challenge to the president's election defe defeat. a defeat by his own calculation of victory in 2016, a landslide lost. it came despite rebuttal of texas which makes no more sense from their original filing. so much of this played out or plausible legal argument, what's so serious is nearly two-thirds of the republican house delegation including 75% of the leadership signed onto this. a premeditated assault, the president himself signals weeks before the election. >> i think this will end up in the supreme court. i think it is important that we
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have nine justices. i think it is better if you go before the election because i think this scam that the democrats are pulling, it is a scam. the scam will be before the united states supreme court. >> and it won't. he wanted his court with his justices to settle this. it did but not in his favor. the three justices he named to the court did not decent to tonight's decision and whether they saw it or not, their decisions came shortly after the president tweeted. "if the supreme court shows great wisdom and courage, the american people will win the most important case in history and our electoral process will be respected again." again, no clue of anything the justices made of that and all the rest of his tweets nor what they made of this other than not wanting to hear more on the subject. >> for president trump to be ahead as far as he was in these four states and for the votes to
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swing by as much as it did, the probability of that and one state is one and one quad-drillion. yeah, making that up. that does not make sense. john cornyn and former judge did not see the ther ri ory of the and mit romney calling it "madness." a spokesperson from president-elect bidenbiden's sae court dismissal was not a surprise. a lot to talk about starting with correspondent abby phillip and john dean. john, does the ruling mean that
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the president trump's efforts overturning the election are completely over? >> i would think so. there are a couple of court cases not likely they'll get to the supreme court again. i think this is the last of the court cases. >> abby, as we pointed out earlier, trump says before the election, he thought it would end up to the supreme court and it is important to have sign justices seated, that's why he rushed amy coney barrett through. what happens now? >> he does not get his wish. i think as john just said is pretty much over. even if some of these lower court cases somehow make their way to higher courts, the problem for the president is that he lost so many states that he's behind by so electoral votes that no one state is going to reverse what we are seeing here and the entire country will see on monday when the electoral college meets. this is over, the president does not get to have this supreme
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court weigh in on this because the court knows that this kind of request to basically have the court weighs in throw out millions of vote is unprecedented and would really throw the country into incredible turmoil and not to mention the fact that there is virtually no legal basis for the claim that's being made for the suit. >> for the president who hates and whose criticism is calling someone a loser for him to be a one-term president to have been a loser in this last election, got to be devastating. he claimed his investigavictory landslide victory. if you believe that, you have to believe that this is a landslide loss. >> that's why all of this is happening because the president
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can't fathom in his mind that he may have lost something. so, this entire episode is about convincing himself and convincing his supporter that he has not lost. he's going to continue the foreseeable future always claiming as he did recently at a holiday party that he won the presidency twice what he knows he did not. >> i said this the other night he'll be talking about this everyday for the rest of his life and when he goes to every night of mar-a-lago, he's wondering around the table acting sort of emcee, he's going to be talking about being robbed or getting his teeth cleaned, he's going to talk about being robbed. this is something ivanka trump going to hear every dinner they ever have together for the rest of their lives. >> i think you are absolutely right, anderson. it is something he can't seem to
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accept and i don't think he's going to send christmas party invitation to the court this year. we are dealing with a man who shown throughout that he can't take any negative attention or defe defeat anything without constantly doubling down. i would be surprise when he tries to pull something off the electoral college selected or counting the votes. there are something you can do there but he likes highly irregular. >> the court did not provide a vote count. just as aledo thomas did add that statement, they would not grant any other relief, can you explain what they are saying there? >> well, this is not unusual in particularly in a case like t s
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this. that was their belief they should have taken the case even if they did not rule favorably on it. the most disappointing thing about that brief procurement is we are at a dangerous time in our democracy. i think the court could have spent a little reputational capital and issue a brief procurement opinion, maybe five pages and say what the president is saying is not true. there is no gray injustice and they looked at it and everything is going as it should go. it is highly polarized. that would have been comforting to the millions of people who are worried of this process. i am disappointed that they did not issue a procurement of opinion. >> john and abby, please standby.
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ma dom attorn madame, attorney general, what's your opinion? >> i am happy that they did the right thing. the people that voted in my state is properly represented. the fact that we have to be relieved that something ridiculous did not occur should not have occurred. it is a sad chapter in american history that we need to put behind us. >> that so many in the republican leadership have gone along with this is insane. do you believe the president's legal options now are truly exhausted at least in courts or what happens when congress gathers for votes in january 6th and as john pointed out to be another story. >> honestly, i make no prediction about that. what we saw happen with the state of texas having filed this
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case, this ludicrous ridiculous case against three others. we are done now. we have rounded the corners and won't see anymore shenanigans because that has continue to occur. we'll continue to fight as vigorously as possible to ensure the person that won the presidential election is sworn into office on january 20th, that's all what we should care about. that's what everyone should want to happen. >> what do you make justice aledo and justice thomas's statements? >> it is clear of the fact no mention of how they would rule on the merit. this was a matter of whether or not it was standing. we had claimed all along that it was there was no injuries in the state of texas done by the state of michigan or other three
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states and of course the supreme court is supposed to be used as an appelate court. i can't tell you what happens behind close doors but the right thing occurs. all of those supported this frivolous and non-sensical action. those individuals will forever have their legacies tarnished with really the stain of donald trump and his clown makeup. it is embarrassing for the country. when we ask ourselves how did other long standing democracy turned into hitocracy, now we
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know. >> am i encouraged that they did not compromise their begty fint for a man who has none? of course. the court is the place that we go to to ensure our other institutions is maintained. in this case, they held up. how many more challenges they could have taken or hits they could hwithstood in the event that trump spent any typicalimee white house is hard to say. when history looks back on this era in american history, we'll see how close we came to losing our democracy. >> truly before the court's decision was released, the trump campaign announced they would be running more cable ads tomorrow about all this.
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is that just noise at this point? >> you know is not just noise l only for the reasons that it erose people confidence and it decimates our democratic system of government. it does great damage to all of us as americans and so i can still take it seriously for that reason. do i think it is going to change the election? no, not at all. i may change future elections. poor america which once stood as a pillar of democracy around the globe. i don't know if many other countries will look upon us as they ever did previous to this. >> i want to bring in john dean and abby phillip back into the
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conversation. do you think at this point she and other attorney generals will be targeted? >> i think they can. they were all business and right to the issues. after reading those briefs, the court could reached to any conclusions they reached today. this was the right decision and the court appeals is over for all practical purposes. >> abby? reaction and other attorney generals received by the public and president trump? >> it is interesting of what trump says tonight because he's at parties hosted by the white house. he's making comments of how he wants four more years and how the supreme court needs more courage and wisdom. this is a definitive blow for him. i don't expect that he's going to stop this quest. you just pointed out, anderson,
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they launched a new ad on national tv, that could be an audience of one on fox news. the president is not going to stop in his attempt to radicalize republicans across the country, we are seeing it in a statement from the texas gop tonight which they said perhaps states should ban together and imply that they would succeed from the union after the supreme court's ruling. you saw the arizona gop asked on twitter whether people would be willing to risk their lives on this cause. the president is not going to stop doing those things. i think we should expect more of the same from him. >> you talk about the threat of democracy and how history looks back at this and see how much democracy was in danger. do you feel like the danger is over? to abby's point, the president
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continues and by all scienigns continue that he's going to try to do that whether he runs again or whether or not he's using that to raise money of foreign actors overseas and helping him take care of all his debts and legal troubles. he's going to be a force of the republican party for the foreseeable future. >> yeah, i think that's true and certainly i think that when it comes to primaries, who the biggest trump supporter is will still play a large role when it comes to our conventions where we have people, you know, nominated for positions like mine, secretary of state and attorney general and the michigan supreme court, if you are not a trump supporter i don't think you will have a chance in 2022. but, the other thing it means is this. the threat against public officials like myself will continue. whether it is plots to kidnap or execute our governor or those
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who stand outside the house of our secretary of state and threaten her, or whether is our slate of electors who are going to be voting on monday and now needs police protection for what used to be a mundane a administrative event nobody paid attention to or knew about. it is a dangerous time in our state and country. we can contribute all of that to one man and that's donald trump. >> attorney general dana nessel, i appreciate it. abby phillip and john dean. coming up, with so much writing with people taking the new covid vaccine, we'll talk to sanjay gupta and the effect of the white house pressure on the fda commission to approve it today.
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♪ to customizes yourcan gocar insurancetual.com so you only pay for what you need? really? i didn't-- aah! ok. i'm on vibrate. aaah! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ as a former governor, he likely understands that the supreme court does not let one state tells another state how to run their elections. here he was talking about the case just yesterday. >> president trump deserves his day in court. the supreme court.
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and all i can say is god bless texas. >> then came the ruling, the question which we raised before the break what his boss intends to do next. jim acosta joins us now with that. >> reporter: the white house is referring us, we know rudy giuliani is talking to one of the conservative outlets, not fox news. he's saying "we are not finished yet" according to some of the reporters coming from the mayor of new york city. talking to a trump adviser earlier this evening, when i asked h has asked his adviser is this when the president finally given up and concede. this adviser said "no way." nobody inside the president's team of advisers thought this
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was going to turn out any other way. they did not think the supreme court would do this. now we see what the president wants to do next and we know obviously he's not going to give it up. but he's running out of options obviously quickly. you no e the far right like to refer to these challenges as a crack. the crack has broke. >> the president may be out of opgs but he o options but he's not out of the opportunity to raise more money which seems to be the heart of all of this. as long as he pretends the effort and as long as he got rudy giuliani or whatever other alleged attorneys are willing to, you know, demean themselves. he can continue raising money from people who actually believe what the president is saying. >> that's right. there is no shortage of trump's friendly lawyers who'll be clown themselves in this fashion.
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we seen this for four years now and we'll continue to do so for another couple of months. the electoral college will meet on monday. they'll make joe biden president-elect biden officially and will be sworn in january 20th. one other date on the calendar goes into your question of fund raising is january 6th, that's when we expect house republicans making a distinct on the white house floor. they can't do anything on the majority of the house so it is not going to go anywhere. there is a window for the president to continue this information for his campaign >> thank you, scott jennings and our democratic state maker. >> scott, are there any motives
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that's going to have them go forward on the trump's train. >> it is obvious it is happening. it will be obvious on monday when the electoral college meets. republicans need trump to be engaged because there are things to do. they got campaigning to do in georgia which the president already engaged in hopefully. there are work left to do even as the president prepares to leave office and the republican leaders know that. they want to work with him on that. they need to keep him focused on those things would help the larger effort. i don't think anyone is under any illusion that anything crazy is going to happen here obviously joe biden is going to be the next president. everybody is pretty much dealing with that reality. >> republican leaders that scott
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was talking about is going to last much longer even after president trump leaves office, the race of georgia may end but all these folks want, you know, his support for their own races and they want his support for republican causes. they want his followers and afraid of him getting his followers to turn on them. >> it is fear. it is cowardness. that's what it is. i understand what scott is saying, you still have until noon of january 20th to get things done. i get it. that does not explain the way the fact that they don't have the fortitude to tell this president that he's not president anymore. you have grown men and women who signed on an amicus preef whobr
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saying the president of the united states is overthrowing the election. lindsey graham and mitch mcconnell not saying anything, we got to figure out what's happening with the minion system in georgia is not democracy. the fact is you have people who won elections, anderson, they won elections and now they are saying the election is rigged? the fact the matter is this president has a unique grasp on the republican party. the cowardness is not something that we can look away from. they are not standing on the side of democracy. no one is saying that mitch mcconnell or any of the 106 or 107 members of the texas state legislatures should support joe biden. no one is saying that. we are saying you should
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acknowledge the democracy that we live in and we love and adore. no one is willing to do that. that's a shame. >> scott, you did say everyone is dealing with the reality of vice president biden is going to be the next president. i want to read to you what alan west who's now chairman of the gop said tonight. perhaps law-abiding state should bind together. except he's the chair of this state's party and he's advocating for a succession. should all republicans condemn that? you would freak out if that was a democrat. >> i will start. i will be glad to start. that's a crack pot statement. it is a ridiculous statement. i don't know any republican leaders who's currently holding office. it feels that way.
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some of the people who support president trump have engaged in magical thinking because of what happened on election night 2016. he appeared to pull a rabbit out of a hat. he was not supposed to win. nobody thought he's beginning to win. he made something happen out of thin air. a lot of those same people had those confidence in this election. they maintained that kidnnd of thinking as we move down this legal process. the trump folks and some of his lawyers have made promises to them about and put out this amazing confidence and legal challenges when it was not worth it and they made all these people believe that we are around the corner and old trump is going to find a way to pull it out. you will see people react this way which was nuts. american in strustitution works. we'll have another election in two years and four years. trump may be a factor in both of
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them. you live to fight another day. >> just on the logic, i don't hear any republicans, members of congress won reelection this time around claiming because this election was so rigged, i should not won reelection. we should have a recount. they all seemed perfectly happy with how votes are counted when they won for their congressional district to become a senator. i don't understand -- i understand what scott is saying, folks on capital hill wants the president to be engaged on the race of georgia and most prominently, the idea that they're afraid and part of that they want him involved but they don't want him to take the race in georgia. they know he's fully capable of just taking his followers and you know condemning the leadership and blowing off the
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candidates in georgia and you know, taking the party elsewhere. >> it is not just georgia though. i am hard pressed to believe that these individuals just want to win in georgia, they want to win their own races. this is donald trump's party. i challenge my republican colleagues. the fact that newt beggingrich mcconnell who set they want president obama to be a one-term president. barack obama persevered and did everything he could and ended up being president for eight years. he was never, ever trying to chip away at the fundamental tenants o f this country and to watch these individuals who won it, barack obama, because he was
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different because they wanted him to be a one-term president but yet instill they won't say anything negative about this man who lost a race. i lost my last race in 2014. i was beaten fair and scare. i am not saying henry mcmaster is not a fair and right governor of south carolina because of some crack pot theory. we have to understand the fundamentals of democracy. the tragedy is not donald trump. the tragedies are these good individuals who still standby him. the grahams, the mcconnells and tim scotts. all of these individuals who whispered and murmured but they are afraid to say it with their chest to quote kevin hart. you got to say it where your chest sometimes and that's "joe biden is the presidents of the united states." >> appreciate it.
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we'll talk to one republicans calling the whole thing "le "ludicro "ludicrous." the white house putting pressure on the fda chief to authorize the vaccine today or resign. we'll talk about that with sanjay gupta ahead. i use rakuten to get cash back in-store and online. i just got to shop online and i get cash back. i love using rakuten during the holidays, because i can get the sale and i can get cash back. and it's so easy and the best way to start off the new year. sign up today and get cash back with rakuten.
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broueaking news the supreme court flatly rejected the lawsuit of battleground states, pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan. a handful of republicans did not
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support. >> i think we have to get out of this looking at bizarre types of articles that's really ludicr s ludicrous. >> insinuating not republicans throw off this election i think is absolutely outrageous. >> fraudulent is minimum ais no enough to change the results. >> think about that, 50 states. to have that accusation thrown out there just to confuse our voters across the united states is absolutely wrong. >> you may not like the outcome of the election but it does not mean our 2020 election was fake.
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it was real. we need to move forward. >> one of those voices is our republican congressman, thank you for being with us. what was the reaction today? >> not surprise. we got the e-mail asking to sign on the brief and the two things i saw there, number one was a bail threat, there is going to be a list of those who did not sign up for the brief. it was written in that e-mail there is this sort of broad strokes that it was brought across the united states. when i saw this, i look at percentages, when i saw the legal team had 1/50 record. that was the baseline for the texas suit. i thought this is not going anywhere. this is based on information. i don't have a great analogy, and anderson, for a record that bad.
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i mean i just -- when you look at a baseline of the percentages and with my background, i thought this did not have a chance and i think we were correct on that. >> the thing about this, the politics aside, the thing that makes me sad genuinely sad is i know i get direct messages on instagram all the time who are trump supporters and look like good, decent people with fami families who love their country and all respects are rational and yet they seem to have bought into what the president has repeatedly said without any evidence that has been toss out in dozens of lawsuits. >> how do we move forward with the country divided with one group of people only seeing things a certain way and everybody is guilty of that on
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different issues. on this it seems so fundamental. >> you do that through machine learning and data techniques, you have to put it out there. there is also another thing. this is the one thing that i worry about. i think you will see an explosion of activity after the supreme court ruling. the reason is because people are sort of lost their footing based on this information has been poured into them. you are talking about not just twitter and facebook but there is youtube and rumble and gab. people can radicalize anywhere. you will see a site upstate. we have to reach out to people
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with love and not hate. >> what do you think happens on monday once the electoral college votes and recognizes that joe biden is the next president of the united states, what do you think your republican colleagues do then? >> i think they're going to wait. i want to give you a better answer than that. i think they're going to wait because they still have election in '22 and '24. that's what i have been warning people about. i am not trying to do it in a mean way but a grift is a grif. i have been doing this so long and see this ridiculously and how it is affecting people. i don't know if you look online tonight, is not this big glowing life is great now and now you will see the antifax conspiracy
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explode the next few weeks. this has not ended. >> congressman riggleman. >> you heard me mentioning 126 members standing behind that lawsuit. standing by a president who hope to standby them on the road and raising money on this fraudulent theory and conspiracy theory of a rigged election. president-elect biden will be ratified on monday and sworn in on january 20th. right now author of "finding my voice." valley jarrett.
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what is your reaction of the supreme court tonight? >> it rejected the arguments coming from texas unconstitutional. they did not have any standing whatsoever. it did do damage. a lot of people in america now questioning the begty integrityr election. even though the attorney general of the united states, cyber security into trump administration and now even though the supreme court ruled that there is no legitimacy to any of this nonsense, people still question it. one silver lining that i hope folks support president trump recognizing that all three of the justices of president trump nominated to the court ruled against this texas decision. i hope that pulls a rug out of his conspiracy theory.
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those are the people that he fought hard to get on court. with his last nominee, amy coney barrett, he was kweconcerned ofe election and he wants to make sure his representative iss is the court. you know they're not his representatives. they represent democracy. >> it is clear though there is no legal standing for the lawsuit. 126 members of congress still signed onto it. a number of them attorneys including kevin mccarthy that clearly, we just talked to congressman republican riggleman says there is a grift going on and surely is. did you ever think the
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republican party would go that far? i hate to make this about the republican party or democratic party but it is a brigrift goinn and americans are giving huge amounts of money and the president is playing them for su suck suckers. >> you remember when barack obama was elected, mitch mcconnell's number one objective was to make sure president obama would not get elected for the second term. now in the face of a clear resounding win by president-biden, republicans are playing politics. who loses out? it is the erosion of our democracy and it is going to have consequences that are not good for america at a time when
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our nation should be healing. do you think is easy for secretary clinton to sit there and acknowledge her loss or sit there and attend inauguration? of course, not or for george w. bush but that's what you do when you love our country. you put our country first. general austin would be the first black defense secoretary, he needs a waiver from both houses of congress because he retired less than seven years ago. are you worried the biden's team may under estimated the resistance of his choice. >> i know him very well. he's an extraordinary public servant. he's been out of the military for four years. he has a keen appreciation for
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the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. . he's competent and experienced. he'll put all of his heart into this job. he's just beginning to reach out members on the hill. he'll answer questions on both sides of the isle and he has a lot of credibility. i am confident as they get to hear why he's the right man for this job as they look at his record that he'll get close top waiver. this is a time for serious people with a track record. i can't think of a better person than roy austin. >> valerie jarrett. thank you. the country reaches another record of people hospitalized
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with coronavirus. here is with the chief of staff getting approval for the pfizer vaccine when we continue. come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.
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our breaking news now on the pandemic. numbers released tonight show a record number of americans were hospitalized today with the virus, 108,044 people. that's about 800 more than yesterday's record number. meanwhile, a source familiar
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with the situation tells cnn the white house chief of staff mark meadows told fda commissioner stephen hahn he needed to grant an emergency use for the authorization of the vaccine by tonight or else he needed to resign. kaitlan collins joins me now. what do we know about pressure being placed on the fda by the white house? >> we know that mark meadows called dr. stephen hahn this morning. he was complaining that they had not granted that emergency use for pfizer's vaccine yet, even though they applied for it several days ago. and he basically ended the conversation by saying if this is not approved by the end of the day, not authorized by the end of the day, then you need to be prepared to resign from your job. and the white house has been kind of backing off that since this was publicly reported, and the white house -- you saw the fda saying it was a mischaracterization of their conversation. they're not denying, anderson, that mark meadows did say that to the fda commissioner on this day as they getting so close to this authorization, but they
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actually are saying they actually don't think dr. hahn is going to be fired over this. we should note this phone call came after several meetings where the two called dr. hahn into the white house because that is a direct result of the president venting about the fact that these authorizations have not happened yet. >> the process for the pfizer vaccine is basically at the finish line with emergency use authorization like this weekend. what does the white house get from doing this at this point? >> that's question. now i've even heard that from several white house officials now that this story has come out. i just ran into the hhs secretary on my way to this live shot. we were talking about the authorization. the thinking is it could come at any minute now. that's how the white house is viewing this, that that authorization could come down as soon as tonight, possibly tomorrow, by sunday. what is the logic in threatening to fire the fda commissioner when we're in the middle of a pandemic and you've got six weeks left in donald trump's presidency. that a question that a lot of people are still raising here at the white house. and so that's why they don't actually think that dr. hahn
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will be fired. however, if this was a few months ago, a few weeks ago, this is certainly something that ooh could happen because that's the level of frustration you're seeing from the president over this vaccine effort. he's seen other countries roll it out. he wants to be able to roll it out as well. >> kaitlan collins, thanks. joining me is dr. sanjay gupta. you spoke with fda director stephen hahn many times since the start of the pandemic. would he let political pressure get to him when it comes to the vaccine? and can you explain the pressure between the fda and pfizer? >> i think there was times when it was pretty clear that stephen hahn, the fda commissioner, was bowing to political pressure, hydroxychloroquine, data around convalescent plasma, things like that. but recently he has not had evidence of bowing to pressure. in fact sort of steering the other way as we've seen play out
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now. this has been authorized tonight but this back and forth ironically slowed things down. i talked about this issue a couple of days ago, just the overall amount of pressure that he was feeling. here's what he said. >> people say mai say hey, it's an emergency. why would you worry about the process? why would you worry about the scientific review that you're doing? and it's my job, it's our job to explain that. and that's what happened. so it was nothing more than that. >> he talks a lot about the fact that he's -- he recognizes there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy out there. so i think he is balancing the messaging around that with watching this whole regulatory process play out. as far as the discussions, quickly, anderson, between the fda and pfizer right now, a lot of this seems to have to do with the labels that are going to be put on these vaccine. what are they going to say about 16 and 17-year-olds? it's authorized, but there is not enough data. what's it going to say about pregnant women? something like you should talk to your doctor about this. we've heard a lot about these
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allergies with people who have had a previous history of severe allergies be recommended not to take it? that's i think what these final discussions are about right now. >> it's interesting. the president today called the fda, quote, big old slow turtle. sounds familiar. this is actually been a very fast process. do you believe there is any reason why americans should not feel confident that this is a safe and effective vaccine? >> no, i don't think there is any reason they shouldn't feel confident. it is a fast-moving process, the development of that, and it is truly remarkable. some of the science on which this vaccine was based has been -- some of this has been studied for quite some time. but this regulatory process, showing the efficacy through these phase 3 clinical trials, and then waiting for two months of safety data as well, something stephen hahn was pressured to not wait for by president trump. he did wait for it. that's another example of him not bowing to the pressure, i think is all very important.
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i think these final steps in terms of saying hey, look, we don't want people who have severe allergic reactions to get in trouble. so either we recommend you don't take it, or you're prepared to maybe pretreat with benadryl or have your epipen, whatever it might be. these last warning labels are important, but i don't think there is any reason to believe it's not a safe and effective vaccine. >> once the fda authorizes the pfizer vaccine, what's the next step? >> so this is happening realtime. as kaitlan was just saying, the authorization could come at any time now. there is a few other meetings. once the fda authorizes this, the vaccine is on the move, leaving kalamazoo, michigan in planes and trains all over the city. the cdc has an advisory committee as well, which if the fda authorizes something, the cdc then recommends it, again, for these various groups of people. and then after that, anderson, monday, tuesday, we could probably see people getting immunized in this country for the first time outside of a trial, which it is really remarkable. >> it is. >> i just have to say that
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again. you know, it's the best of times and the worst of times at the same time, right? the best of times with scientific progress. worst of times with the number of people who are still becoming infected. but this is a good moment for overall science. >> when you think people with hiv have been waiting for a vaccine for decades. >> 40 years. >> it's extraordinary how quickly this happened. sanjay, thanks very much. appreciate it. again, another record high number of hospitalizations today. also so far more than 2500 deaths reported just today. and of course, there are still several hours left. it is a tough week for so many families. there is so much loss. and tonight sadly it now includes someone we met here on the program. keith zugden died. he had been in the icu when our gary tuchman met him a few days before thanksgiving. the walmart greeter for more than 20 years was hoping to go back to the job that he loved.
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he never got that chance. here's what he told gary last month. >> it's been a great life, and these -- these tears in my eyes are happy tears. they're not sad tears. to know that how many people really care. >> so many people cared. he was a greeter at walmart for 20 years. keith was a widower. he had nearly 40 children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great, great grandchildren. how incredible is that? he was 88 years old, and our hearts go out to his family and every family impacted by this pandemic. now more than ever, the world needs heroes. join me and my good friend kelly ripka for cnn heroes, a tribute.
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orlando bloom, gal gadot will be among the celebrity presenters. again, that's at 8:00 p.m. on sunday. that's it for us. news continues. like to hand it over to chris for "cuomo prime time." chris? >> big night, coop. have a good weekend. i am chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." congratulations, america. you won. the supreme court told the retrumplicans, 126 house former gop members and trump himself what they all already knew. you have no case because you have no proof. you have no right and you will get no relief. the entire court agreed. let me read. the state of texas' motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under article 3 of the constitution. texas has not demonstrated a judicially