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Biden Ready To Work On Tackling Coronavirus Pandemic; Jared Kushner Has Approached Trump About Conceding; Interview With John Bolton About Trump's Refusal To Concede; Trump Campaign Announces Representative Doug Collins To Lead Georgia Recount Effort; New Daily COVID Cases In The U.S. Exceed 100,000 Five Days In A Row; Trump Campaign Planning Messaging Blitz To Fuel Election Questions. Aired 9- 10p ET

Aired November 08, 2020 - 21:00   ET

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

[21:00:55]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

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

Tonight a rather chilling number that shows that even with the election over, our nation may face even more trouble over the next few weeks. Last hour, we learned that today marks the fifth straight day of more than 100,000 new and confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States. The last five days in fact have been the worst of the pandemic. Look at these numbers. Today's numbers going to rise even more. The day is not yet over.

Fighting the pandemic does seem to be a priority for the next president of the United States. Tomorrow, the president-elect Joe Biden will name his own coronavirus advisory task force, although he will not take the oath of office for 73 days, until January 20th. Meantime, the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, who should be focusing in on the pandemic, of course, appears to have other priorities, at least this weekend.

Today and yesterday, he paid another visit to one of his golf resorts outside Washington, D.C. And while staying out of the public eye, he's still refusing to concede the election despite increasing pressure to do so.

Let's start our coverage this hour with CNN's Arlette Saenz. She's joining us from Wilmington, Delaware, where the President-elect Joe Biden is of course.

Arlette, we've been told to expect major details about Biden's coronavirus task force tomorrow. Tell us what you're learning, what we can anticipate tomorrow and in the days ahead.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, President- elect Joe Biden is ready to get right to work. And that begins tomorrow with a series of actions on the coronavirus pandemic. He is set to announce a 12-member task force that will strictly focus on the coronavirus as he is looking to tackle this pandemic before he even makes it to the White House.

The coronavirus pandemic was really central to Joe Biden's campaign messaging in these closing months. And now it will shape the early days of this transition. He has long said that his coronavirus response will be guided by scientists and experts. And that's what you will see in this task force that he is unveiling tomorrow. It will be led by former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, also former FDA commissioner, Dr. David Kessler, and Yale University's Marcela Nunez Smith.

Biden going to rely heavily on the advice and consultation of scientists and medical experts going forward. We've also heard the former vice president talk about how he wants to reach out to both Democratic and Republican governors during this transition period to gauge what they need back in their states to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. His team has also unveiled a bit of a plan of what they want their COVID-19 response to look like, including expanding testing and contact tracing. Also, providing more PPE for those essential workers.

But Biden's team has been working behind the scenes for quite a few months on the transition, putting everything together from this COVID- 19 response team to also potential policies and executive actions he could move on in those opening days of his White House. But Joe Biden making it very clear, he's ready to get to work as the president-elect starting tomorrow -- Wolf.

BLITZER: He certainly is. We'll follow every moment. History is unfolding right now here in the United States. Arlette Saenz, in Wilmington for us, thank you.

As President-elect Joe Biden pushes forward, President Trump is digging in and he is not conceding this, despite CNN has learned multiple members of his inner circle, including the first lady, Melania Trump, imploring him to accept the election loss.

Let's go to our White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins.

Kaitlan, it's not just the first lady who's pushing the president to concede. It's his senior adviser and son-in-law as well.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We are told Jared Kushner has approached the president about conceding the election. But, Wolf, it's clear the president has not made that determination because he has not done so yet.

[21:05:04]

But there is a growing number of people in the president's inner circle that believe the time has come. Joe Biden is making moves to become the president-elect, like doing things like naming a transition task force on the pandemic to get focused, to put him in place when he does actually take office in January.

But there are other people, Wolf, in the president's inner circle who are encouraging him to fight this. And he is watching his favorites on FOX News who were saying similar things, feeding his claims that are so far have been baseless about this being a fraudulent election that was stolen from him. So it's that part as well. And we know the president and how he feels about grievances and how he has for his last several years in office.

So it doesn't seem to be anything that the president is going to take himself away from soon and come out and acknowledge that he's lost to Joe Biden, even though, Wolf, I have been told by sources that reality has set in for the president. He is aware of the fact that the math isn't there. That he has lost this election. And that Joe Biden will be inaugurated. But really the big question now is, how does he handle this transition period?

Because we know the president had been frustrated watching the coverage yesterday after all the networks had called this race for Joe Biden. But now he's not only going to watch that, he's going to watch Biden as the president-elect picking cabinet members that he wants to appoint, assembling this task force, doing other things to prepare for taking over the very office that Donald Trump holds now.

So the question is whether or not he continues to nurse this grievance if he maintains this election was stolen from him as he's done, delays the actual formal certification of the election results, if he's demanding recounts and filing lawsuits. And so that's the question of what the president is doing behind the scenes, Wolf. We know publicly, he did golf yesterday. That's where he was when we called the race. He was back on the course today.

So far he has no public events on his schedule for tomorrow. So we'll be watching to see whether or not the president comes out in front of the cameras at the White House if he maintains the events that he had held as president. And that's something we don't know the answer to yet -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, but what happens, Kaitlan -- right now by our projection Biden has 279 electoral votes. You need 270 to be elected president. But Biden is ahead still in Arizona right now. He's ahead in Georgia. If he wins those two states, and he's ahead in both of those states, he would have 306 electoral votes. So would that convince the president, you think, to concede?

COLLINS: It's a good question because that's math you can't deny, Wolf. And remember just a few days ago the president's campaign was maintaining he'd win by 30,000 in Arizona. And now we're looking at how those numbers are and of course they maintained that by last Friday, he'd be declared president of the United States again. And of course that hasn't happened, Wolf. So the question is, how long can they deny reality?

But I will tell you, if you want to know how long this is going to go, how long the president will maintain this, I was told by a source that even if his margin in some of these states continued to grow in favor of Joe Biden, not in favor of Donald Trump, he was still going to maintain that he had won and that there should be recounts and that something had happened with all of the people who had voted for him. And that hasn't happened, Wolf. And he's continued to maintain that he

won this election, even though that's not true. So the question is, you know, how long can he deny reality when other things are moving on like Joe Biden getting ready to become president in just two months from now?

BLITZER: And if he loses in Georgia and Arizona, there are Republican governors in both of those states, it will be hard for him to fight that. Raise all sorts of legal challenges.

Kaitlan, thank you very, very much.

Let's bring in the former Trump National Security adviser John Bolton. He's the author of the best-selling book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir."

Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. I want to read for our viewers your statement on what's going on right now on this situation. Let me read the exact quote.

"Republicans are facing a character test. Any candidate is entitled to pursue appropriate election law remedies if they feel there has been misconduct or error. But no one, especially a sitting president, should disparage our electoral system without hard facts."

That's the quote. In alleging this fraud with no evidence at all backing it up, is the president of the United States, Ambassador Bolton, potentially doing lasting damage to our democratic system?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I think the potential is certainly there. But I don't expect that to change. Donald Trump doesn't see himself as a loser. So whatever he finally concludes that the number show he will not have lost this election. It will have been stolen from him. And I think we can almost guarantee that at some appropriate moment, we will have a stab in the back theory, we will have explanations about how it was stolen.

But absent some factual basis, which is yet to be demonstrated, he is going to lose when the electors meet on December 14th. And the country should begin to move on. That's why I think for Republican leaders, it's important to say what they really know. Not to fear a Twitter storm from the White House, but to say what we know.

[21:10:03]

And it's important for the press when the lawsuits are filed tomorrow by the Trump campaign that they report what the allegations in the complaints are and they let the facts play out in court. And I think that's important for the press not to display a double standard. I don't have high confidence we're going to see that across the board. But that would be my free advice to the media, just like my free advice to the Republican Party.

BLITZER: We're learning, Ambassador Bolton, that Russian state TV has now been amplifying President Trump's unfounded claims of U.S. election fraud in its primetime coverage over these past few days. What do you make of that?

BOLTON: Well, I think this fits right into the Russian game plan of attempting to destabilize the country by calling our institutions into question. That's why what Trump is saying is so dangerous because it gives fodder to our adversaries around the world to say, look, even a sitting president says you can't trust the American electoral system. This is very damaging. And it's very damaging to the people of this country who are listening to Trump and believing him.

It's why really a concession statement is so important and why the consequences of his not giving one are so damaging. The concession statement is a way for the candidate to say, I understand I have lost. We fought the good fight. I've lost. And implicitly says to his supporters, if I can accept defeat, you can accept defeat. So Trump's unwillingness to give that is also causing real damage. It's why other Republicans have to step up and say, he's lost the election.

BLITZER: Because, as you know, and you were the president's national security adviser, you worked closely with the U.S. intelligence community, they repeated suggested going back for years that Russia's goal in interfering here in the United States was to sow political dissent, to create political chaos, to weaken the United States at home and abroad in order to advance their own priorities. And that's clearly what they're still doing. Right?

BOLTON: And so are the Chinese. So is Iran. So are North Korea. So are a lot of our adversaries. This is disinformation in the classic sense. And they're just continuing. It's not a campaign that's going to go away. It's not about supporting one candidate over the other. It's about destabilizing the country. This is a form of asymmetric warfare that Russia and China continue to wage against us.

BLITZER: You called on Republican lawmakers to come forward and actually compel the president to accept the results of what the American people have determined. Certainly not everyone is heeding your advice, at least not yet. Let me play this little clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Trump has not lost. Do not concede, Mr. President. Fight hard.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): At this point, we do not know who has prevailed in the election. The media is desperately trying to get everyone to coronate Joe Biden as the next president. But that's not how it works.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What was your reaction when we learned today that the former president of the United States George W. Bush phoned President-elect Biden and congratulated him on his win?

BOLTON: Well, it's exactly what I would have expected from George W. Bush. And it's what we should see from other Republican leaders. I think too many have not yet themselves internalized the fact that Trump lost. And I will tell you, as they look at the political future, January 19th will be a very different day than January 21st. Once Trump is actually physically out of the White House, I think the political dynamic will change dramatically.

And anybody thinking about the 2024 nomination really ought to get that into their heads. It's much better to face reality and tell the truth than to continue to live in the shadow of the Trump world that he tries to create.

BLITZER: President-elect Biden's inauguration on January 20th at noon will be historic indeed.

John Bolton, the former National Security adviser to the president, thanks so much for joining us. And thanks for writing your book, "The Room Where It Happened." Appreciate it very much.

BOLTON: Glad to be with you.

BLITZER: For the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, all eyes right now are on Georgia. Former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang says he will actually head down there to the Peach State to try to flip the Senate seats blue.

Andrew Yang is standing by live. We have lots to discuss when we come back in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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BLITZER: Just a short time ago, the Trump campaign announced Republican Congressman Doug Collins will lead their Georgia recount effort. This as President-elect Joe Biden's lead in the critical state eclipses 10,000 votes right now. Meanwhile, Georgia's expected to determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate with one of its Senate seats already headed for a runoff in early January while the other looks certainly likely.

I'm joined now by former Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

Andrew, thanks so much for joining us. I want to discuss Georgia in a moment. I know that's something close to your heart. But what do you think are the major lessons right now for your Democratic Party in the wake of President Joe Biden's victory -- President-elect Joe Biden's victory, I should say?

ANDREW YANG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We're still elated to say the words President-elect Joe Biden. And I thought his speech and Kamala's speech last night were tremendous. But you can't ignore the fact that Democrats lost seats in the House, which was not what they expected at all. And that the Senate -- there was a chance that it could tip blue. But right now, it looks like Mitch McConnell is going to be the majority leader. And that could hamstring Joe's legislative agenda from one day because we've seen this movie before.

[21:20:06] We remember Mitch McConnell, the obstructionist during the Obama years. And that could recur very easily unless Georgia decides to have both of its Senate seats go to Democrats on January 5th.

BLITZER: And you're going to be working hard on that. Stand by, I want to discuss that. But do you think, Andrew, that the lack of a coronavirus economic stimulus deal in these past several weeks actually cost Democrats seats in some of those races in the House of Representatives? The Democrats were hoping to expand their majority in the House. That didn't happen. They lost several seats.

YANG: I genuinely do think the lack of a stimulus bill was a real problem for Democrats because everyone associates the government trying to help people out with Democrats. They know that the Democrats love government as a force for good in people's lives.

And so the fact that citizens around the country were waiting and waiting and waiting from April to now November with no second stimulus relief, I think really set Democrats back around the country and made more Americans open to a message of mistrust and that government is not working for them, which unfortunately is resonating with the Trump message.

BLITZER: What are the chances that the House and Senate might hammer out some sort of economic stimulus deal in this lame-duck session in November or December?

YANG: I obviously hope that they get to business next week. And Mitch has said that. He believes a stimulus bill should pass by year end. But we're not sure because the fact is lame-duck sessions are not conducive to large-scale legislation. President Trump is going to be completely checked out and preoccupied arguing for another alternate version of reality rather than looking at legislation.

So this is what I'd feared, Wolf, is that we find ourselves in a lame- duck session unable to pass relief while Americans were suffering. I certainly hope that Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi can come together and hammer out a deal that should have been passed weeks or months ago.

BLITZER: I know you were outspoken on this issue. As you know, the President-elect Joe Biden, he's on the cusp of winning Georgia. I just checked, he's ahead still by 10,353 votes. Do you think the momentum will carry over into the likely two Senate races there in early January and the Democratic candidates potentially have a shot at winning? Because I know you're actually planning, what, you want to go there and campaign for these Democrats?

YANG: Yes. My family is moving to Georgia sometime next week to campaign for Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock because it's so vital that we deliver to Joe a Senate that he can work with. But these special elections are typically an uphill battle for Democrats. Democratic voters are not used to voting in January.

And so we have a lot of work to beat the drum and get the awareness level up to the fact that these elections in the Senate are vital to the direction of the entire country and that hopefully the way people in Georgia came out to vote for Joe Biden will be the exact same way they vote in these special Senate races on January 5th.

BLITZER: Yes. We will see what happens. Republicans, as you know, they argue that a Republican Senate majority is key to preventing the President-elect Biden and the Democrats from implementing what they charge will be a far-left agenda. So how do you think the Democrats -- the two Democratic candidates in Georgia, for example, counter that message?

YANG: We can just look around us, Wolf. Communities are suffering in Georgia and around the country. And we need a robust legislative agenda to help dig us out in the form of cash relief to families, relief for restaurants and small businesses, aid to city and state governments so that they are not forced to turn around and lay off more workers. And all of that is much more difficult in an environment where Mitch McConnell is saying no to anything that's going to help people.

So this message to me should win. You know, because anyone looking around saying, wait a minute, my local restaurant just closed. Someone should be doing something about that small businessowner the same way that they're doing something about the big corporations or the banks and airlines that have been receiving stimulus relief in their own way from the original CARES Act.

So this is something that I feel very strongly about, strongly enough where we're heading down to George and I'm going to go door to door and make this case to people in the state because it's so vital that we have a government that can actually respond to the challenges of our time.

BLITZER: Would you like to serve in the Biden administration?

YANG: If they offer a role where I can contribute, Wolf, I'd be thrilled. You know, I ran for president because I care very deeply about the future that we're going to leave to our children, to the next generation.

[21:25:03]

It's not trending positively so if I can contribute in some way, count me in. They know that, though. I mean, you know, I have been texting back and forth with various people.

BLITZER: Is there a specific position you'd like?

YANG: I ran on trying to humanize our economy, universal basic income, which is something that 55 percent of Americans now agree with. 82 percent of Americans agree with cash relief during the pandemic. But I'm also passionate about trying to speed up our government on technology-related issues because we've fallen way behind the curve in ways that are destructive for our democracy, bad for our mental health.

Social media in particular has become very, very distorting and has some negatives associated with it as well as positives that our government has not gotten its arms around in the least. So that's something I would love to help with as well.

BLITZER: All right. I'm sure they are seriously considering it. And we'll see what happens. Andrew Yang, good luck. Thanks so much for joining us.

YANG: Yang-Yang is heading to Georgia, Wolf. We've got to win these races.

BLITZER: It's a great state. You're going to love Georgia for the next few months. Appreciate it very much.

Despite the election, the coronavirus pandemic, though, has not disappeared at all. Instead, the U.S. is now setting very, very bleak and disturbing records. One doctor is warning the virus will be running rampant by the time Joe Biden takes office on January 20th.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BLITZER: There's more breaking news coming in on THE SITUATION ROOM on the coronavirus pandemic. Cases surging right now. Brand-new Johns Hopkins University data show more than 100,000 new cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. once again today and every day in fact for the past five straight days. The number of new daily coronavirus cases was the worst on Saturday. It's the highest ever reported in the U.S. And now with today's update, five straight days of newly reported cases exceeding 100,000 each day.

Let's bring in Dr. Leana Wen. She's a CNN medical analyst, an emergency room physician at the George Washington University Hospital here in Washington.

Dr. Wen, how startling are these numbers? And what's behind this awful, huge spike?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I'm very concerned, Wolf, about what's happening here in the U.S. because there is a firestorm of COVID-19 that is surging, accelerating all across the country. We reached one million new cases in just the last 10 days. And at the rate that we're going, we're going to have 2,000 deaths every single day and 200,000 new infections every day in the U.S.

I think what's happening is a combination of things. We have not had a national strategy. We still don't have nearly enough testing. We also have pandemic fatigue which is very pandemic. But that's also made worse because of mixed messaging. And we should be very clear that this is an extremely contagious virus that's spreading like wildfire across the country. And the surge is not going to turn around on its own. It's up to each of us and our actions to turn this around.

BLITZER: When you see these numbers, and they're so high, Dr, Wen, what does it mean for hospitals, for example? What does it mean for our health care workers? WEN: We have already seen that many of our hospitals, particularly

across the Mountain West, to the Midwest, the upper Midwest are already getting overwhelmed. There are ambulances that are getting turned away from the E.R., from ICUs that now have to go many hundreds of miles for patients to get the emergency care that they need.

And this is something that doesn't just affect patients with coronavirus. But it's going to affect other patients whose elective surgeries are being postponed who can't get care potentially when they are in car accidents and are having strokes or heart attacks. That's not sustainable. And that's why that window of opportunity for action for us is actually rapidly closing.

BLITZER: As you know, the president-elect Joe Biden is going to create a COVID task force tomorrow. He still has, what, 73 days before he actually takes office? But is there anything he and Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general of the United States during the Obama administration who's advising this new task force, what can they do to prepare the groundwork for the work that clearly lies ahead?

WEN: There are two key things that can be done right now. The first is direct communication with the American people. The entire time our response has been hampered by mixed messaging. And we know that that public trust has been seriously eroded. And so President-elect Biden can communicate himself with the American people through fireside chats. He can also have his top public health experts begin to explain why it is that we need this type of urgent action.

The second thing that he can do, even though he doesn't yet have executive power, governors and mayors do. So he can convene governors and mayors, lay out his national strategy, get buy-in into that strategy. And even though he can't yet take those actions, he can convince governors and mayors to take those necessary steps like mask mandates, new restrictions on indoor gatherings and other things.

There is really no time to wait. If we wait 70 some days, we're going to see potentially hundreds of thousands Americans die. We've already wasted eight, nine months of inaction. And we can't afford to waste any more time.

BLITZER: Yes. You're absolutely so right. This is so, so bad.

Dr. Leana Wen, thanks so much. Thanks for everything you're doing. We're grateful to you.

WEN: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Even though Democrats won the White House, two key Senate races in Georgia could potentially decide how effective a Biden presidency will be. There's more information coming in. We'll discuss.

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Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: There's breaking news coming into THE SITUATION ROOM right now. Listen to this. According to three sources, President Trump's campaign is now planning a messaging blitz to fuel its baseless argument that a second term was stolen from him. Two sources tell CNN that one of the ways it plans to do that is by presenting what they described as obituaries of people the campaign will claim actually voted in the election and considering having a campaign-style rally or rallies across the country to amplify that message.

Let's bring in the senior editor at the "Atlantic," Ron Brownstein. He's a CNN contributor as well.

Ron, you hear what they're plotting to do this Trump campaign at this stage when the election has been projected, when everybody knows what's going on. What's your reaction to this?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's incredibly destructive and continuing kind of like, you know, tear the walls down on the way out.

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I mean, there's just no evidence of any meaningful amount of voter fraud. I don't think there's any evidence of any voter fraud and certainly not in the magnitude that will require to overturn a result of this breadth.

But, Wolf, this is just the latest example, and maybe the most destructive example of how the enabling of Republicans in Congress allows the president to continually trash democratic norms. I mean, they could end -- they could shut off the oxygen to this by doing what Mitt Romney has done, what George W. Bush has done, and -- you know, and saying what is obvious. The president lost this election fair and square. But they won't. And they haven't.

And in some cases they are going in the opposite direction. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham encouraging this. And so they provide more oxygen to what is, I think, you know, a very destructive path for the president to basically try to convince his voters that this election was stolen from him.

BLITZER: CNN is now reporting, Ron, that one idea actually being tossed around the Trump campaign is whether it can actually run out the clock enough to put forward a Republican slate of electors in key states where Biden won the popular votes. State laws vary on whether they can appoint electors that don't reflect the will of the people. One of the sources actually, by the way, cautioned it was unclear how seriously this idea is being considered.

What do you think of that strategy, that potential strategy? Do you think in any way it might work?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, it's very difficult. I mean, the Pennsylvania legislature -- it would require Republican controlled state legislators to try to send their own slates to the electoral college. Pennsylvania has already said they can't do that. As I understand the law, you can't change the law -- you can't change the method of selecting the electors after the fact. There are Democratic governors in those states as well that would be at issue here. Michigan -- I don't know how you begin discuss this in Michigan. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.

And under the Count Act of the 1880s, when there is a dispute between two slates of delegates, the one that is certified by the governor is supposed to get the upper hand. So I don't see in the end how this is ultimately achievable.

More practical, Wolf, you know, we've seen the reporting that the General Services Administration, you know, acting kind of under Trump's thumb is refusing to do the customary thing and begin to extend the equipment and facilities and budget that Biden needs to plan his transition. And again, all of this would not be possible if Republicans in Congress were not enabling it or at the least tolerating it.

BLITZER: Yes. People around the world are watching what's going on in the United States and wondering what is the president of the United States and his supporters -- what are they even thinking in the aftermath of this win by President-elect Biden.

Ron Brownstein --

BROWNSTEIN: It's a nation within a nation.

BLITZER: Yes, it's amazing --

BROWNSTEIN: That's what it's becoming.

BLITZER: It's an awful situation that's unfolding. We'll see how it unfolds. Thanks very much, Ron Brownstein, for joining us.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Meanwhile, Joe Biden's road to the White House has not been smooth including personal tragedies, two failed presidential runs. We're about to take a deeper look into his path becoming president- elect of the United States with a Biden biographer when we come back.

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BLITZER: It's almost cinematic. Joe Biden finally wins the presidency after two failed bids during his long sometimes rocky political career after a life marked by repeated and devastating personal tragedies.

Was this moment always in the cards for him? Or was it a case of finally being the right man at the right time?

Joining us now, Evan Osnos, he's the author of a brand-new and very, very timely book just out entitled "Joe Biden: The Life, the Run and What Matters Now." Evan, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for writing this really

important, excellent book which I have gone through. And I want to start with a question from the title of your brand-new book, what matters now to the newly elected -- he is about to be the president of the United States, the president-elect, Joe Biden?

EVAN OSNOS, AUTHOR, "JOE BIDEN, THE LIFE, THE RUN, AND WHAT MATTERS NOW": Well, if you listen to his speech last night, what you heard was him talking about healing. I think those of us who cover politics, we are immune, have a bit of hardened skin to that kind of language. For him, this is as core as it gets to his life. Let's remember, from the very beginning of his political career, he won his first race for the Senate at the age of 29. And his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident even before he took his seat in the Senate.

He really in a sense came up through government with the belief that it was possible to have a fellow feeling with people across the aisle. This is not abstract for him. It's baked into everything he does. We sometimes forget when he came into the White House with Barack Obama in 2009, one of the things he did was he was in charge of lobbying the late senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, to change parties.

[21:50:03]

He sees people as adaptable and changeable. That's at the core of what he believes. He sees the country in the same way. We can change if we choose to.

BLITZER: The former vice president, you know, he's been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest man. He's now the president-elect of the United States. A very historic moment. But it's happening during a deadly pandemic which seems to be getting worse. There's also as a result of the pandemic a national recession. The nation is so bitterly divided.

So how do you expect he'll tackle these unprecedented challenges?

OSNOS: His belief is that -- at the very beginning, the most important thing that a leader can do is use the power of their words to project the fact that they fundamentally understand the pain you are going through. Look, you know what's interesting is that, Wolf, we know Joe Biden as this person who's been through personal tragedies but that was not actually of course the role he wanted in his life. When he got into politics, he thought he was going to be the great foreign policy hand.

That's what he wanted. And he ended up being this kind of agent of empathy. This symbol of empathy. I mean, people stop him wherever he goes to tell him about what has happened in their lives, the losses they has suffered. Part of the reason why he runs late for appointments is because people are constantly stopping him.

I've talked to people in the course of writing this book who got phone calls from him in the middle of the pandemic because the campaign wanted to get him on the phone with real people every day. And people who were suffering, people are literally sequestered in their homes, quarantined from their families. And he would get on the phone and say look, I can't pretend to know exactly what you're going through but I've been through some terrible things in my life and here are a few things that helped.

And I talked to them about it. And I think you can understand the way he was able to win without seeing that role in his public image, and also that's part of how he governs. He begins from the idea that people need to be restored before they can be led.

BLITZER: When you started writing this book, and as I said, you know, I've gone through the book. When you started writing it, did you really believe he was going to be the next president of the United States and that's why you wrote the book?

OSNOS: Well, to be honest, I got interested in him a long time ago. Partly because he was involved in foreign affairs and Wolf, that's my background. I was serving overseas, I came back to the United States. I've been a reporter abroad. I said, who's doing stuff that really matters abroad?

I went over to the White House, started talking to Joe Biden, and realized pretty quickly that Joe Biden, you know, he can spin like any other politician. But the truth was he often found himself saying exactly what he really believed.

He had a kind of incorrigible habit of candor. And so I found myself going back to him and back to him, and interviewing him over the years, wrote a couple of long pieces about him in the "New Yorker" and that was the makings for this book. And I hope it helps people understand, that like, you know, like all of us, frankly. If you reduced our lives to one or two bullet points, you wouldn't understand what actually makes our minds work.

I wanted to understand what makes this man's mind work if he's going to be the next president of the United States and indeed it looks like now he is.

BLITZER: Well, we projected he will be the next president of the United States.

OSNOS: Indeed he is.

BLITZER: And on January 20th at noon, he'll be sworn in, he'll be inaugurated and he will become the next president.

Evan Osnos, the book is entitled, 'Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now." Thanks so much for writing this book. Thanks for all the terrific reporting you've done over the years as well. We are all great to you.

OSNOS: Thanks, Wolf. It's a pleasure to be with you.

BLITZER: Thank you. And we'll have more news right after this.

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[21:58:03]

BLITZER: Yesterday's decision in the presidential race here in the United States was notable in another way. It happened just a few hours before "Saturday Night Live." Giving the show first crack at having a laugh at the result and making a little fun of me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome back to what has become election week in America. I'm Wolf Blitzer and I've been awake so long that my weird stubbly beard finally makes sense. I'm joined by John King who's been operating our touch screen for the past 85 hours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Over the years, I must say "SNL" has had a series of Wolf Blitzers on the show. All in very good fun. And I must say, over these many years, I've enjoyed all of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Wolf Blitzer and this is -- we go now live to another part of studio where senior political analyst Gloria Borger will read a stranger's e-mail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More on screen news for the call is a privilege, not a ride.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is the same Joe Kelly seen here in a CNN dramatization.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good evening. For those of you who missed our earlier undercard debate featuring Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, well, the results are in and everybody lost.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's take a break. When we return, much, much more on socialite Joe Kelly seen here from outer space. You're watching THE SITUATION ROOM.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That's very cute. That's it for me tonight. I must say, I'm the real Wolf Blitzer here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Thanks very much for watching after a truly, truly historic week for our country.

I'll be back in THE SITUATION ROOM tomorrow. 5:00 p.m. Eastern. "CNN NEWSROOM" with Pamela Brown starts right now.