One-on-one with “Operation Warp Speed” Moncef Slaoui; Supreme Court could make decision on Texas lawsuit any moment; U.S. averaging 2,200+ deaths, 210,000+ new cases daily; Biden introduces more cabinet nominees & senior advisers; Millions on brink of financial crisis as stimulus talks stall;
The Lead with Jake Tapper
CNN
3.5 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2020
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sources: White House told FDA Chief to authorize Pfizer vaccine today or resign; CNN: Messaging failures around COVID vaccine distribution; Admin Official: Most states expect to use up first COVID vaccine shipment within days; CDC advisers expect FDA authorization of Pfizer’s vaccine before Saturday morning; Sources: WH told FDA Chief to authorize Pfizer’s vaccine today or resign; FDA calls report “untrue”; Boston conference in Feb led to 333K COVID cases, one of largest documented U.S. super spreader events; Biden says there is no political influence on vaccine; Biden ignores question about when he’ll get vaccine; 12M unemployed to lose aid after Christmas if Congress doesn’t act; Food banks serving record number of Americans as pandemic surges;
To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is |
| 0:02.0 | the N breaking news. |
| 0:04.0 | Welcome to the lead, I'm Jake Tapper, and we start with breaking news in our health lead. |
| 0:08.0 | Authorize the coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer today or you're out. |
| 0:12.0 | That is reportedly the message from the White House |
| 0:14.8 | to FDA Commissioner Stephen Han according to two sources who tell CNN the White House |
| 0:19.5 | Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told Han to submit his resignation letter if he does not okay the US's first |
| 0:27.1 | coronavirus vaccine by close of business today. |
| 0:30.5 | Now Dr. Han is now disputing the story which was first reported by the |
| 0:34.0 | Washington Post but sources say the authorization was already expected tonight or |
| 0:38.8 | tomorrow with the Trump White House hoping to ship out the first doses within 24 hours. |
| 0:44.3 | But health experts are warning that this is going to be a long process to widely distribute |
| 0:50.4 | a coronavirus vaccine taking months and that the pandemic could get |
| 0:54.7 | drastically worse before then. In just moments I'm going to speak to the head of |
| 0:58.3 | Operation Warms Speed months of Sloughy about the Pfizer vaccine rollout and |
| 1:02.1 | when you and your kids can expect to get vaccinated |
| 1:05.1 | but first let's bring in CNN White House correspondent Caitlin Collins |
| 1:08.0 | Caitlin what are you hearing happened during this call between White House Chief |
| 1:12.2 | of Staff Meadows and Dr Stephen Hahn of the FDA. |
| 1:15.0 | Well, Jake, so as this call was going on, the president was publicly lashing out at Stephen |
| 1:20.0 | Han on Twitter for not getting this done faster and he was also having his own |
| 1:24.5 | staff and his chief of staff lash out at him privately because we're told that |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CNN, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of CNN and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.