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New Day

President Trump to be Tested Every Day for Coronavirus after His Valet Tests Positive; Video Resurfaces of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany Criticizing President Trump as Republican Presidential Candidate; Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) is Interviewed About the Coronavirus Pandemic and New Jersey Extending Public Health Emergency Until June; Millions of Americans Face Reality of Unemployment. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 08, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reopen by this weekend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that we are seeing the start of a botched reopen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to have increased testing to allow our economy to fully reopen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's absolutely horrific, and Georgians deserve answers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gregory McMichael and his son were charged with murder and aggravated assault in the death of Ahmaud Arbery.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We feel a sense of relief. This day was a turning point in recovering my brother's case and getting justice for him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday, May 8th, 8:00 in the east. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill in this morning. Great to have you here.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good to be back.

BERMAN: We are now just minutes away from the release of the April jobs report. This is unprecedented, historically bad. This will be the single worst jobs report ever. Economists forecast the U.S. unemployment rate will soar to at least 16 percent. The 10 years of job gains have been erased in just one month. Again, no one has ever seen anything close to this, and we will cover it from every angle. Also this morning, more than 75,000 people have now been killed by

coronavirus. That's more than 2,000 new deaths over the last 24 hours. Still, 47 states will be partially reopened by Sunday. And through it all, the president keeps insisting that testing is overrated, even though he and his West Wing staff will now be tested every day after it was revealed that one of the president's valets has coronavirus.

HILL: We are also following breaking news overnight, a story we have been covering this week out of Georgia. A father and son now charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed man, Ahmaud Arbery, two months after he was killed while allegedly jogging. And we're going to speak with Ahmaud's father coming up in just a little bit.

BERMAN: We're dealing with the latest on the pandemic. Joining us now, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, great to have you here. You were up late last night, talking to Deborah Birx of the Task Force as part of the CNN global town hall. Now, the reporting from CNN and others was that the White House had rejected the 17-page document of CDC guidelines giving advice about how to reopen. Dr. Deborah Birx told you, no, no, no, we haven't really rejected it, we're working on it. Listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Those are still being worked on. No one has stopped those guidelines. We're still in editing. I just got my edits back from the CDC late yesterday. I'm working on them as soon as I get off this discussion. So we are in constant work with the CDC and really value their partnership. And as you know, they put up guidelines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So interesting that she now she's they're coming after it was pretty clear that they were rejected. I suppose that that's a good thing for the medical community and the business community, but it does reveal the tension that still exists inside the White House.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think that's the way that to look at it, John. The thing that strikes me is that it's good for everybody, right? It is also good for the general public because people go on that website to get some answers to questions that I get all the time. Can my kids go to summer camp this summer? What about college sports in the fall? There's very specific recommendations on the CDC's website, and it is based on looking at the virus. We know about this virus from a microbiology standpoint, but how does it behave in real world environments? That's what the disease detectives do in part. That's where this evidence is crafted.

So I hope that she is telling us this is going to be out there, they're just making edits. I hope that that information gets out there, because it is going to be really valuable. People are making some really important decisions right now based on what the CDC says.

But I have to say, John, just the way you framed it, the CDC has been sidelined here. And I don't still know why. People last night suggested that they are being punished because they had botched testing that was rolled out initially. Well, the people that ended up getting punished are us, because, again, we need this information. Covering swine flu 2009, H1N1, Richard Besser was acting director, he was out front. Ebola, Tom Frieden was the director of the CDC, he was out front. This is what they do. And they're the best organization in the world to do this sort of stuff. So the CDC cannot be sidelined. They cannot -- maybe they're being punished. Who knows what the real answer is, but there is nobody benefiting from the CDC being sidelined right now.

HILL: That is for sure. When it comes to testing, and we talk about testing, obviously we're hearing more about it now after the president's valet tested positive, and now we're learning that the president and others around him will now be tested on a daily basis. And as we look at that, Sanjay, he at the same time was saying, well, but the tests aren't that great.

[08:05:00]

There are some issues with this Abbott rapid test, a 15 percent false negative, which we actually heard about. How concerning is that in terms of the information we will be getting now on a daily basis out of the White House?

GUPTA: Yes, I think there's two issues here. One is that -- we asked Ambassador Birx about this last night as well, but there are people who are obviously coming in close contact with the president, close contact is defined in specific ways from an epidemiology standpoint. But people who have close contact with somebody probably need to be doing everything they can to decrease the amount of virus they're putting into the environment. So the idea of people wearing masks, I know it has become this touch point, but the reality is, take the White House, for example, you have Secret Service do everything you can to protect the principles in the White House, this is a difficult, more difficult one for people to understand, to get their heads around, because it is an invisible sort of thing, this micro-virus here. But how do you protect people?

So the idea that you can test more often is great, but the real goal is to not get the infection in the first place, right? The testing is after the fact. And then, the point you bring up, a 15 percent false negative rate means out of 100 people tested, 15 people will be told they're free and clear when in fact they're in the. Are those people then coming in contact with other people thinking that they're negative, but they're not.

So it is an issue. It is not a perfect testing. So at this point you have to certainly do everything you can to just mitigate the spread. And culturally wearing masks is something that we're not used to in this country, but it seems like something that can help. And so we probably need to be doing it.

BERMAN: It is unfortunate this has been politicized to a certain extent, the wearing of masks. If it can help, it would be great if people could do it. Sanjay, there is a study out of the University of Maryland, which has

been tracking people via their cell phones, which, and they found that since the stay at home orders have been lifted, people are, not surprisingly, not staying at home as much. There is increased mobility in parts of the country that have begun to open up. Now, there was no mobility before, so I guess the increase is from zero, but still, what does this tell you, and what should the concerns there be?

GUPTA: I'm really curious to see how this sort of goes, John. On your program, you presented those polls looking at people's attitudes towards reopening and whether or not they would go out even if they could go out, and some of those polls were encouraging in the sense that people really did seem to still air on the side of safety.

There was another thing that that University of Maryland study showed, John, living here in Georgia, I guess, since the reopening, some 62,000 people came to Georgia from other states because the restaurants were open, the hair salons, bowling alleys, things like that. And it does make this case that if you -- can you open up in this sort of patch work way if people can still move around from state to state or county to county, however it is going to be opened up. The virus doesn't care, as we all know. It doesn't respect these boundaries.

So it makes the case, I think, that there needs to be more of a national plan here so that we can all be in this together, because how you behave there is still going to influence me in some way or another, and how I behave here is still going to influence you in some way or another. So it doesn't surprise me that more people are moving around. I think two to three weeks from now we'll see the impact of that. But in the meantime, I think a national plan because of that is going to be really necessary.

HILL: Some guidance, maybe, from the CDC on how to do things, that could help too. Sanjay, good to see you, thank you.

GUPTA: You, too.

HILL: So we just talked a little bit about President Trump getting trusted now every day. Why is he going to get tested now every day if testing if, as he has said, overrated? CNN's John Harwood joins us now live from Washington with more. So what are we hearing specifically on this testing from the president, since he has downplayed it?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're hearing from the president that he was alarmed to find out that his valet had tested positive for the coronavirus. And in response he was tested the day that he learned that, he was tested the next day, and he says he's going to be tested every day thereafter.

Look, it is obvious that testing is critical to the resolution of this issue. It is critical to restoring the confidence that will allow the economy to reopen. We're going to get terrible job news in about 20 minutes that shows the magnitude of the economic devastation that this virus has caused. The only way we get more than a smattering of return to economic activity is if people have the confidence that they're going to be safe.

And at the individual level, for every person who might feel at risk, testing is critical to their peace of mind. And the evidence for that is what President Trump has done. The reason he has downplayed testing and said, well, it is not so important, is because that is a way to shield himself of the responsibility if other people think testing is inadequate.

[08:10:06]

We all remember that when it appeared that we were desperately short of ventilators, that in a worst case scenario hospitals were going to be overrun and people like Governor Cuomo of New York were requesting large numbers of ventilators, he said they don't need those, or they should have gotten them themselves. He was trying to protect himself from the idea that he wasn't able to deliver that. Now that we're past the peak, he says I'm the king of ventilators, and I suspect at some point he'll say he's the king of testing. Testing is ramping up. That is a good thing. It's embraced by everyone. In fact, Republicans in the Senate yesterday, very reluctant in general, conditions to criticize the president, said, no, we need to ramp up testing. That's because they know that the American people want it.

HILL: That they do. On a separate note, CNN's KFILE uncovered some comments from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany back when she was talking about then candidate Donald Trump. I want to play that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How sick of polls are people in New Hampshire right now?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Probably very sick, especially when they see that Donald Trump is number two and doesn't deserve to be there.

The GOP doesn't need to be turning away voters and isolating them. We need to be bringing them into the tent. Donald Trump is the last person who is going to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kayleigh, this is your guy, he's number two in the polls.

MCENANY: I don't want to claim this guy. The fact that the Republican Party is now having to claim him is both unfortunate and to me inauthentic.

What is the expiration date then on a racist statement? To me a racist statement is a racist statement. I don't like what Donald Trump said. I don't like what Al Sharpton says, and at what point does it expire and become something --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But Kayleigh --

(END VIDEO CLIP) HILL: Kayleigh McEnany of course now the White House press secretary. Are she or the White House addressing these comments?

HARWOOD: They haven't yet, but I expect that they will today. Look, Kayleigh McEnany was not alone in feeling that way about President Trump early in the campaign. Much of the Republican establishment was trying to downplay his chances, looking to other people, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and others. We all remember Kellyanne Conway worked for Ted Cruz, she said some very critical things about the president.

So Kayleigh McEnany was trying to make her way in Republican politics and Republican media, and that was a fairly standard position. It is uncomfortable now because she's the White House press secretary. I would expect that when the president is asked about it, he will find some way to gently chide her, and she will find some way to talk around the things that she said, but that's a little bit par for the course when you have a family fight and somebody wins. Every individual Republican who previously criticized President Trump now faces a choice, which is, do I want to participate in this now? Do I want to support the president? Do I want to work for this president? She has chosen yes, and that's gotten her a pretty good job.

HILL: Politics can be messy, can't it? John Harwood, always good to see you, thank you.

Will the beaches be open this summer? That is a big question across the country, including in New Jersey as that state extends its public health emergency for another month. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is with us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:38]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, Phil Murphy says he expects to be able to reopen beaches by Memorial Day. New Jersey is second in the nation in the number of cases in deaths behind only New York. More than 250 new deaths were added just yesterday.

Joining us now is New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

Governor, thank you very much for being with us.

Let's start with what I think a lot of people will look at as good news, that you suggest you think you'll be able to reopen beaches by Memorial Day. What leads you to believe that you can make that decision?

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D), NEW JERSEY: Good to be with you, John.

And I -- and the important word in that sentence is "think". We had a good test run last weekend. We had really good weather. And we made the decision to open up state and county parks and to allow golf under certain parameters.

And the overwhelming number of folks in Jersey complied and did exactly as they said as we asked them to do. They kept social distancing, a lot of them wore masks. They kept away from each other. We limited parking capacity in the parks to 50 percent.

That gave us some confidence that we -- that we needed to look at other steps we could take.

So, we're not there yet on beaches, but obviously, the Jersey Shore is a crown jewel, not just of our state but of America. That it's a big economic driver.

So, if we can apply a similar model to the beach -- the beach question, that's something that we're looking very seriously at trying to do.

BERMAN: At the same time, you have extended the state of emergency as you were required to do for another month. And your stay-at-home order is in place indefinitely.

So, what's the status? What's your situation in New Jersey right now?

MURPHY: So, John, I would put it this way, we made a lot of progress. But we're not out of the woods.

So, our hospitalizations are down, ICU beds are down, ventilator use is down. The heat maps that we look at by county are all dramatically better than they were a couple of weeks ago.

As you rightfully point out, we announced with heaviest hearts 254 deaths yesterday, 300 something people went into hospitals yesterday. So we have made enormous amount of progress, but we're not out of the woods yet.

It is important to note that if you ask any epidemiologist, any expert, you do have more latitude assuming you social distance out of doors than you do indoors. So, frankly, parks and beaches, while you got to manage the distancing and the capacity are easier lifts to manage than say congregating closely inside. And that's still a ways off.

BERMAN: I've been asking this of leaders because there is pressure to begin to reopen. There is a need in some cases for people as soon as it's possible to be able to reopen. How do you articulate to people what the appropriate or acceptable level of risk is?

MURPHY: Listen, the great news, John, is people get it. Not just anecdotally, when you look at polling in our state, in the country, in the region, when folks are asked how comfortable are you doing any of the following things, they say, wait a minute, we're not there yet.

We announced a 6-point plan to get back on our feet last week, four of those markers are healthcare, to give people the confidence that we've got the testing, the contact tracing, the isolation that those curves are still going in the right direction.

[08:20:07] I think people get that and they want to get that confidence to allow them to say, you know what, it's OK for me to bring my family out to do X or Y.

BERMAN: Let's talk about nursing homes, which have been a real problem around the country, a big problem in New Jersey as well. So, National Guard troops have been deployed to assist at some of these nursing homes. I know there was a nursing home that was fined by the federal government yesterday.

What's your concern, because these still seem to be a problem?

MURPHY: Yes, there's no question, John. And, by the way, when you look at the tragedy of this awful virus, the tragedy within the tragedy is long-term care facilities. Just about half the fatalities in our state are related to long-term care facilities. It's been an incredibly uneven and disappointing performance by the operators up and down the state.

And, by the way, like a lot of states, we've got hundreds and hundreds of these entities. So, we have the attorney general launched an investigation. The Department of Health has been laying markers out for two months, we hired a nationally recognized firm earlier this week to help plus up our efforts, as you rightfully point out, we're putting the National Guard into these homes, based on need.

It's an all hands on deck --

BERMAN: Right.

MURPHY: -- but it is an incredible tragedy, not -- as you know, not just in New Jersey.

BERMAN: Can we talk about the transmission rate, the R-naught? Which is a statistic that some people are becoming familiar with here. Have you thought about what a livable transmission rate is for New Jersey long-term, assuming there is a months, maybe years long wait for a vaccine? What's your target rate there?

MURPHY: Yes, I mean, I take input from extraordinary group of medical and science professionals, both on our staff in our state and around the country. So, I'm not sure I've got a personally precise answer.

I'll tell you how we look at it. We follow among other things, among other things, heat maps of our 21 counties. And one of the -- one of the metrics in those maps is how long does it take for the virus to double, which is a different way of approaching the question of R- naught.

And we want to get all of our counties into the 30 days plus shade. We're about two-thirds, probably even closer to three-quarters of our counties are there as we speak.

We want to -- we want to get them there and we want to keep them there. Again, the scaled testing, contact tracing, isolation plans all of which we want to have in place by the end of this month will give folks, give us and give everybody the confidence that we can nip any flare-ups in the bud. And that's what folks need to see.

BERMAN: Last bit of information here. Laurie Garrett who has written about pandemics for a long time told me yesterday and she's been telling people that it could be 36 months before we're out of this. That's a best case scenario.

When you hear something like that, what do you think?

MURPHY: With a heavy heart, I've seen Laurie, I've read some of Laurie's stuff, I've seen her on CNN.

Please, God, I suspect she would be in violent agreement with me -- let's all hope she's wrong and it's a lot sooner that we not only get the healthcare infrastructure in place like the testing and tracing, but also that we get therapeutics that are -- that are efficacious, that we get a -- the vaccine that is safe and scaled, sooner than later, even if it is a year, year and a half from now, that would put us in a dramatically different place.

So, it's frightening, but I hope -- I hope like heck we beat it. We hope for the best and plan for the worst.

BERMAN: Governor Phil Murphy, we appreciate your time this morning. Good luck.

MURPHY: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: All right, breaking news, we're now just moments away from what will be the worst jobs report in U.S. history. We have it coming for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:52]

BERMAN: The worst jobs losses in the U.S. since the Great Depression. We are moments away from an historic jobs report. The impact on all Americans is devastating and very real. Hundreds of people lining up at the food banks of Los Angeles for the first time in their lives.

CNN's Kyung Lah with the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARMAN SARIAN, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER: It is hard, emotionally, financially, everything. Our life has changed 180 degrees.

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): And it happened overnight.

SARIAN: Overnight. It happened overnight.

LAH (voice-over): Arman Sarian tells a story you hear again and again at food banks across today's America. He pulled up for free food in his BMW, until coronavirus hit his Los Angeles printing shop more than supported his family of four. (on camera): Are you scared?

SARIAN: Yes, but as a household of the family, I don't show it. I have two teenagers to raise up. We have to keep up the good spirit, but we're all scared.

LAH (voice-over): The lines of the needy and the numbers of unemployed all harken back to the darkest time in America's economy, the Great Depression. Like then, this downturn touches millions upon millions. Entire industries halted, like air travel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I miss you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I miss you.

LAH: Cruise ships, tourism, and theme parks, and retail and restaurants. From Las Vegas to main streets across the country, gutting jobs.

PROF. LARRY HARRIS, USC MARSHALL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Think about five fingers, 20 percent is one of the five. One out of five people in the United States who wants to be working is no longer working. And that's jaw dropping.

LAH: But there is a difference with today's economy.

HARRIS: We know exactly what's causing the job loss. At the -- in the Great Depression, people understood there wasn't enough money but they didn't really understand why.

LAH: A vaccine, a medical breakthrough, could help put this father back to work.

(on camera): Have you ever had to do anything like this before?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it's first time for me.

LAH (voice-over): He's a writer and actor in Hollywood. An estimated 750,000 jobs in California have been impacted as the entertainment industry suddenly stopped. Driving up with his son, he said he wanted to talk in support of the L.A. regional food bank, but only if we didn't use his name.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's difficult for a lot of us.

END