U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal Reacts to the Election

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: First, obviously, your reaction, we can imagine, but what do you make of him coming out presidential, while the actual president refuses to cede, to concede at all this race?

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Well, I wish we could have expected something different from Donald Trump, but this is the ridiculous behavior that we have seen for four years, to not concede the race, when all major news channels have called this, AP has called it. The reality is, Joe Biden will be our next president, and there’s nothing Donald Trump can do to change that. So, it’s unfortunate, because the country needs to move forward and move forward quickly. Joe Biden is signaling that he’s not going to let Donald Trump not conceding stop him from doing that. And so he’s already making it clear what kind of leadership he will have, particularly as we fight a virus that has gotten so much worse just in two weeks. The numbers are stunning, in terms of the number of deaths every day, the number of new cases every day. We are on a terrible trajectory heading into winter. And I think Joe Biden wants to do everything he can to get ahead of it.

AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you given that the pandemic, the vaccine, everything is top of mind, including during the election, and how the election was conducted. Your reaction to the Pfizer news. Let’s just play a little bit of the sound bite from the CEO. He was talking to Sanjay Gupta.

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BOURLA: Ninety percent is a game-changer, 90 percent. Now you’re hoping to have a tool in your war against this pandemic that could be significantly effective. How long this protection will last is something that we don’t know right now, but it’s part of the objective of the study.

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AMANPOUR: Congresswoman, there are unknowns, as he pointed out, and he also did say that it would be made available free to all Americans. What are your hopes and your concerns about this moment right now about the vaccine?

JAYAPAL: Well, I — yes, I mean, I think that this is very, very good news, but I think that we have to make sure that we are continuing to follow all the protocols for vaccine development and approval. And I think that, with the task force that Joe Biden announced today, I feel very confident that that will happen, that we will have people back in the administration who believe in science and who won’t be penalized for actually wanting science to work and scientists to have the say on these vaccine processes. So, I think we’re still a ways away from actually being able to distribute a vaccine to everybody, but we have been in close touch with Anthony Fauci, with others within the FDA, and I think the reality is, this is good news, but we still have to go through the entire process. But, obviously, a vaccine is critically important.