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White House Task Force Report Says 18 States in COVID-19 "Red Zone" Should Roll Back Reopening; New Daily High for Deaths for Texas; Secret WH Document Warns That 18 States Are In "Red Zone"; Trump's Niece Fires Back After President Calls Her "A Mess"; Mary Trump Speaks Out About Her Uncle, President Trump. Aired on 8-9p ET

Aired July 17, 2020 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:05]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: All right, Erin. Have a great weekend.

I am Chris Cuomo. Welcome to PRIME TIME.

Yes, your clock is right. I'm in for Anderson. We have a jammed pack two-hour show for you tonight.

Big guest. We have a Trump with us this evening, Mary Trump, fresh off the heels of her uncle's first tweet about her new tell-all book that is selling like hot cakes. Nearly a million copies on just it's first day.

The president finally weighed in on it tonight. That was going to be my starting angle, I can't believe he hasn't said anything and typical fashion, he takes down his niece just like anybody else that says something he doesn't like, but what is her response?

You're going to hear from Mary Trump what it's like to grow up in that family, what the family is like, what Donald Trump is a product of and something else. You know, you hear clinician all the time talk about the president and what they think he is and isn't. But they don't know him. They haven't been around him. They don't know anybody who is really around him on a regular basis.

Mary Trump is a psychologist, and has been around him, and knows the people that watched him grow up. That is powerful insight. So how does she, if not diagnose, explain her uncle's behavior?

The first niece is about to take us on an illuminating trip inside the mind of the man that she calls dangerous with a grotesque indifference to the lives of others. She'll go deep into why she thinks her uncle as been ignoring the biggest crisis on his watch.

He keeps proving her point again and again. I mean, here he is today playing down the need for what will help save us, dismissing masks? And the need for a national mask mandate. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I want people to have a certain freedom and I don't believe in that, no. I don't agree with the statement if everybody wear a mask, everything disappears.

Hey, Dr. Fauci said don't wear a mask. Our surgeon general, terrific guy, said, don't wear a mask. Everybody was saying, don't wear a mask.

All of a sudden, everybody's got to wear a mask. And as you know, masks cause problems, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Yes, and they used to say the earth was flat. Then they got smarter and realized it was round or do you not accept that, either. They said didn't wear masks when they didn't know what they were talking about in terms of the real risk of how this thing gets spread and the concerns about PPE.

And you know what else they were? Wrong. That happens.

You know what you do when you're wrong and you find out that you were wrong? You correct it. You correct it. It's not a weakness. It's a strength.

So, now, where are we? Problems do masks cause? Political problems for him, right? That's the problem. There is zero downside to masks. Only what he perceives as a political downside to him.

The shame that he will play to his own favor when he knows it's making you sick. There's a leaked White House Task Force document that recommends mask wearing and other stepped up pressures for 18 states in the so-called virus red zone.

Why isn't the president calling for them? We are in pandemic pandemonium. His response is the hoax. Not the pandemic, the response, because where is it?

Kellyanne, my friend, we've done amazing things with states. Why are they all complaining?

The only way we get through this is together. We've all known that from the beginning. We just didn't know how alone we were separated from those on high in the federal government.

So back with us tonight, let's get with Dr. Ashish Jha of the Harvard Global Health Institute to once again set the table with what makes sense and what he can still do.

Good to see you, Doc.

DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: Thanks for having me on, Chris.

CUOMO: Masks are a problem, you know? You can put them on wrong. They can go over your eyes. You can't see where you're going. You fall down a flight of stairs. You know, you can't taste with them, very hard to eat. Can't wear them.

What are the real risks at all of wearing a mask? JHA: For -- no. No real risk. I was going to say, theoretically, but

for normal people with even people with lung disease, there is no risk, Chris. Masks are very safe.

CUOMO: So, what is he talking about? He talks to cats like you all the time theoretically, to use your word. You know, he's got the task force. What could they have told him or is he just making this up?

JHA: I think he's making it up because I know the people on the task force and they are saying to the American people, you should be wearing a mask. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that people should be wearing a mask when they're outside their home.

[20:05:06]

So I don't know where the president is getting his information or if he's making it up, but it is clearly incorrect and not based on science.

CUOMO: So they put together I guess a task force a document about what should happen in 18 states and the red zone and all these different protocols. Why aren't we hearing anything about it?

JHA: Yeah, so, you know, Chris, I reviewed the document. It's really good. It's science based. It makes good recommendations and what is puzzling to me is two things. First of all, they haven't made the document public, like this -- what the right thing to do is should not be some secret, and second, governors, many of them, not all of them are just ignoring advice of the White House's own coronavirus task force and I find that baffling, as well.

CUOMO: I mean, look, people don't have the sophistication we have on the task force level. Look at the Georgia governor, right? Right when this was getting bad and he was pushed about what to do, he admitted that he just learned that you can be asymptomatic but contagious. I mean, all right? I mean, the guy isn't a scientist and he doesn't have better heads around him or at least he didn't then.

So, that made a little sense that's why you need federal guidance, right?

JHA: Look, we don't expect our political leaders to be public health experts. We don't expect them to be pandemic experts. We expect them to rely on experts and then make decisions and just seems to me like a lot of political leaders have decided to defy experts and try to kind of go at it alone with the virus. It's not going to work out. It's not working out well for people in those states.

CUOMO: And also, nobody is saying, even if there were to be a national mask mandate, that wouldn't mean me and you in our little closets right now where we're shooting the show. It would be when you're in public, if you're in communities where they have some kind of threshold level of cases, you know, they're playing it like everybody has to wear a mask everywhere at all times. Has anybody suggested that? JHA: No and look, we know when masks are really useful, when you're

outside of the home, especially if you're in indoor public settings like a retail shop. That's when it becomes really, really important and any time you're in any gathering outdoors it's important. So, that's when you should be wearing a mask. You don't need to wear one at home. I don't.

CUOMO: Fauci said the other day it's a mixed bag when you talk about the reopening. There are situations the states and cities essentially officially did it well enough. Here it says perfectly correctly but I don't think that exists to be honest. I think he was being too generous. But the citizenry, the people themselves did not abide by what those recommendations were from the state and the city. Now, that's true. The question is why they're not.

People move to convenience and personal advantage. You know, this idea that people are all good. I think we can have a really big discussion about it and people are basically self-interested. That's why we need leadership to tell them why it's in their self-interest.

How messed up did we get by this mask, masquerade at the federal level.

JHA: So, Chris, I'm going to gently disagree on one part of this. I -- I do think most people are good, and trying to do the right thing. Part of the problem is there a massive misinformation campaign. So, while public health people have been saying, wear a mask, do social distancing, there is a large campaign, as you know, of people who are saying masks are mind control and we don't need social distancing.

And I think they are genuinely good people who get confused by all of this and we got to find ways of stopping that misinformation. It's going to be very hard to fight a pandemic if all that misinformation is happening, as well.

CUOMO: I'll let you take over my social media for the day and you'll understand where I'm coming from where I see different slices of humanity, but, of course, you're right.

So, when we look at the social responsibility, as I say every night, obviously, if I believed otherwise, I would be frustrated with my own efforts. The key is the we.

People have the power on two levels. One is not germane to your discussion, which is outrage. People have to let those in power pay a price for making the wrong moves right now. That's not your beat. But in terms of spreading a culture of containment, we need that right now because it's not too late for us to have some good results with schools in the fall, right?

JHA: Yeah, look, in terms of schools in the fall, the window is getting narrow here and if we all act smartly and we all act to protect our society, yeah, absolutely we can get our act back together and we can open up schools safely. Everyone has to wear masks like we got to avoid large indoor gatherings. We got to push on testing. The same formula we've been talking about for a couple months now, if

we do all of that and if individuals behave well in that context, then I think we can get a lot of our lives back and while the pandemic is going to be with us, we won't be suffering the kind of casualties we're suffering right now.

CUOMO: Testing. Now, we're still in the where we need to be but we have to be a little more specific. There are a lot of tests and lots of different places, and lots of people are getting tested, OK?

[20:10:05]

So what do you mean when you say it's still not what we need?

Now, anecdotally, I have way too many people telling me, Cuomo, what the hell, man? I can't get -- I can't get my test result back, it's four days, six days, eight days, ten days. Even in New York.

Why the variability? What needs to be done?

JHA: Yes, so, there are two sets of issues here. One, there is plenty of testing available in New York, but they are using the national labs, the quests and others and those guys are getting slammed by all the tests that they have to do in Arizona and Texas and Florida so lag times are seven, ten days at which point --

CUOMO: No good.

JHA: -- result is becoming pretty useless.

CUOMO: No good if you want to reopen schools because those communities have to adjust because you know who doesn't want to wait? Somebody that wants to know whether or not to send their kid to school tomorrow.

And, you know, when someone has lice and you know this already, I don't care how much you pay for school, the kids get lice. You know it in like 15 seconds they have it all over the place and the warnings go out and that's nothing. This actually matters so we got to get a better system.

Ashish Jha, Doc, thank you very much. Have a great weekend. Be healthy. Be happy.

JHA: Thank you, Chris. Nice being on.

CUOMO: All right. So, we got to look at the places being hit hardest not only because of the extreme situations but because of the instruction in them. What lessons are learned? What aren't learned?

Texas, two days now they have hit a new daily record for deaths. It's getting so bad some areas don't have enough room to hold the bodies. Remember seeing that in New York how frightening that was?

We thought we were passed it. Now, we're right back there again. The mayor of San Antonio, the crisis so bad refrigerated trucks are once again in play. Why? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:16:57]

CUOMO: That secret report prepared for the White House Coronavirus Task Force talks about 18 states in the red zones. I don't know why it's secret. I don't know why I'm calling it that. It should be public, shouldn't it? I mean, don't they work for us?

Now, one of the biggest states in a red zone is Texas -- 174 deaths reported there alone. What is the number mean in context? Well, it's a new high. The previous high was just yesterday.

What does that tell you? They're in a bad spot. You got well over 300,000 cases tonight after more than 10,000 more were reported. Some areas are ordering more body bags.

In San Antonio, you'd seen images like this. We remember this from New York. Refrigerator trucks brought in to deal with overcrowded morgues. It's a terrible reality.

Now the question is, does it have to be that way? Our next guest, the mayor of San Antonio, is Ron Nirenberg, and I want his take.

Thank you for joining us. I'm sorry it's during this time, but I'm happy to afford you the opportunity.

MAYOR RON NIRENBERG, SAN ANTONIO: Good to be with you, Chris. Thanks.

CUOMO: Why is this happening?

NIRENBERG: It's happening because we're seeing an incredible acceleration of cases throughout our city, throughout our state, and that goes right into our hospital system and the cases are not only increasing in number, they're increasing in severity.

So, we've had our hospitals begin to plan for their surge management, which means not only the work that's being done on the floor and in the ICUs and ventilators but also what happens, unfortunately at end of life, which we're seeing too much of.

CUOMO: Was it about the reopening? Everything is lag with COVID, right? Takes time for people to get exposed, to get sick, to get symptomatic if they're going to be, et cetera, et cetera, and to hospitalization and anything worse.

So, you got lag. It can be anywhere from ten days to two or so weeks. Is this about reopening too quickly in the wrong way?

NIRENBERG: We opened before the data suggested we should. We opened faster than the data suggested we should, and then we had political leaders in our state and obviously in our nation who were saying that, you know, wearing masks and other things that the public health professionals were doing were political statements. So, it created a perfect storm starting about Memorial Day, we saw a

very swift acceleration of cases that tracked back to that particular date, and it has only increased the number just about every urban center in our state, as well as rural areas now are getting hit hard which ultimately impacts the hospitals and urban communities, as well.

CUOMO: You know how when you're in the middle of a crisis, people say there is no time for blame now. Let's just, you know, figure this out and don't let yourself be led by emotion.

I disagree with both. I think right now is the perfect time for blame and the perfect time for outrage because those are the only two factors that will stop the status quo.

Abbott pretending to have strength -- the governor of Texas -- pretending it's strong to say we won't go back. We won't close anything down. Don't worry.

Shouldn't that be the worry that he is closed-minded to the reality that safety is strength?

NIRENBERG: You know, I think you said it right on the last segment, Chris. We have to learn from our mistakes and being unable to admit mistakes, whatever level they occur, will only increase the misery that we're in.

And so, you know, it is true. There is no -- there is nothing less useful than the runway behind you but if you're not able to assess what happened with the data and change your behaviors, then we're -- then we're up a creek.

And so, you know, we're waiting for that kind of guidance at the federal level, obviously, with a mask order that I think would help and even here at the local level in a state that really is kind of wavering on school openings, we're just now beginning find some guidance and so it is all about making sure that we're listening to the public health professionals examining this and following their guidance, but also learning from the things that went wrong.

CUOMO: Schools. How is it looking?

NIRENBERG: Well, we just issued an order today that there will be no in person instruction until at least after Labor Day.

[20:20:03]

But most importantly, when schools begin to come back into session, they won't start until our health professionals suggest that the triggers that we need to see in place, such as positivity rate and our ability to track and test folks in the community has been hit.

That's one of the things that has been lacking in our approach so far is we've got to go through some gating criteria, making sure that we have an ecosystem and environment that's ready to treat people and to identify infections that occur so we can keep healthy people from getting sick. CUOMO: San Antonio is a thriving metropolis, lots of people, lots of

land area.

What is the response from the citizenry to that suggestion, breaking it into a very simple ratio, the "I hate you for doing this" versus "I don't like it but I get we have to do this".

What's the ratio?

NIRENBERG: You know, it's hard to say. I think if you're looking for public sentiment on social media, you can get a very dim view of the world, but if you walk around my city, people want to help each other. We're a city of compassion, of understanding, a place where people take care of each other, and they are able to see that with the increasing number of sick people and increasing number of deaths in our community, that represents, those represent lives lived, loved ones lost, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles that we no longer have with us.

And if we work together on simple things, minor inconveniences of avoiding mass gatherings, of, you know, keeping six feet away from people and ultimately just wearing a mask, we can help save lives in our community.

CUOMO: I mean, look, if those tractor trailers don't send the message to people, nothing will. I hate you have to have those in your city. I understand what the calculus is. I understand the considerations and really the respect for the dead that they suggest in an unusual way, but that's what the situation is right now. You can only have so many people in the funeral homes, especially when you can't have ceremonies.

So, I get it. But if that doesn't send a message, I don't know what was.

Mayor Nirenberg, anytime you want to make the case for what's happening in San Antonio, it's certainly a laboratory for what's happening in this country. So, feel welcome.

NIRENBERG: Thanks so much, Chris. Thanks for all you do, too.

CUOMO: God bless and be safe.

NIRENBERG: You too.

CUOMO: All right. Ahead, this is a big interview with Mary Trump. She is responding to the president in real-time. He broke his silence. You have to admit, it was -- it was odd that he hadn't said anything about this book sooner but he slammed her tonight. What does she think is behind it? What does it mean to her?

On COVID, don't let anybody mislead you, the record being set left and right for cases are real. The WHO says the number of cases worldwide reached a new high Thursday. Here, not only did we reach a new record for cases yesterday, it was the ninth record high in just the past month. What does that suggest?

Chief Doctor Sanjay Gupta on this hidden task force report. What's that about? And numbers, what will make them move the right way, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:27:36]

CUOMO: Why would we have anything considered to be secret document if it's made by the White House task force to give guidance to these 18 states that are in what they call a coronavirus red zone, meaning, during the last week, they have reported new cases above 100 per 100,000 population, and a diagnostic test positivity result above 10 percent.

The report recommends those places rollback reopening. Publicly, the administration says the exact opposite. I guess I just answered my own question.

Let's bring in the chief doctor, Sanjay Gupta.

Is it as simple as that that because you have Trump blasting this B.S. message about us being okay, that the task force is having their report buried and guidance kept away from these states?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I think it's basically as simple as that. In fact, if you look at this buried report, a lot of it reflects what the gating criteria were, you know, to reopen states in the first place. You remember those gating criteria. They had different phases, phase one, phase two, phase three, phase four and they kind of ignored almost, Chris, from the very start.

So, now, you know, you have sort of this report that comes out and basically says, OK, now, based on the criteria on your state, if you look at the gating criteria, this is what you should be doing. If you had a five-day increase in numbers, if you're seeing a certain amount of viral spread, we need to go back to an earlier phase. It's all there in the original gating criteria, just with a little more specifics on what these various states should do.

So for example, here in Georgia where I am, if you look at the criteria, a statewide mask ordinance should go in place. That's again according to the gating criteria that came out of the White House, you know, originally as part of the reopening plan and instead, you have a situation now as you well know, Chris, where the governor is suing the mayor in this city --

CUOMO: What is that about, by the way? Is there any good argument he would have? I know you're not a lawyer, but is there any good argument?

GUPTA: I mean, the argument that he's making, it's a weird thing, right? So, I give you the background. He' s extended the emergency for the state until the end of the month. CUOMO: Right.

GUPTA: He does wear a mask, Governor Kemp. In fact, when President Trump was visiting, he greeted him on the tarmac, Kemp had a mask on, the president did not.

But when Mayor Bottoms said we need to make this a mandatory thing, mask ordinance, he basically said, you can't do that, it can't be enforced, I will sue you if you do, that was it. So he's basically saying, look, you can't enforce it. So why make it an ordinance? I think that's what his argument is. Problem is Chris and this is why the something that they talked about specifically in these criteria is that, there are many places unless there is some sort of mandate. People may not take it seriously.

CUOMO: Right.

GUPTA: And if you have a certain amount of viral spread, you can't -- you've got to do it. It's important for the overall public health of the community. So it's a really tiresome and controversial and provocative issue. People are debating it constantly, even though I think from a public health standpoint, they speak with one voice on this, right now, especially given that the numbers are growing, masks are something that can significantly help,

CUOMO: You know, applying a very simple BFT analysis, but for Trump, how did masks become a controversial thing? Now look, their best argument is, because you Gupta, you guys screwed it up early on and you said don't wear a mask. We need them for the PPE people. And maybe you're going to touch your face and make yourself sick. So that's it was over right there. You guys gave the first guidance. That's the last guidance. And now it's all screwed up after that, it's your fault.

GUPTA: Yes, well, you know, the reality is that as we learn more about this virus, specifically, that it can spread asymptomatically. Typically you think of respiratory viruses. As you get sicker, you become more contagious. What we learned about this virus, it's very interesting, not a lot of viruses like this, is that even before you become sick, is when you are most symptomatic. And you probably don't know that you have it at that point. So the message at that point began became you have to behave like you have the virus.

The testing is inadequate, we never really got ahead of testing so people don't know. So if you can be asymptomatic and spread it. Now it became clear that masks were necessary for everybody, because anybody could have the virus, because we don't test enough, all these things are sort of dominoes that build one on the other. So, you know, the original sin is we minimize this problem. Number two is we never got ahead on testing, we're still not ahead on testing and, you know, middle of July were behind on it. And three is, when we learned about asymptomatic spread on top of all that you had to start thinking about the most basic public health measures that can make a difference.

You know, typically for healthy people, you don't need a mask, and frankly, that that that's still true. If you know you're healthy. If you know you absolutely don't have the virus, you're healthy. You can make the argument you don't need a mask. But for the vast majority of America, that's not the case. We don't know if we have the virus or not. You've already had it. So you're in a different position.

Right now today, Chris, I couldn't tell you for certain whether or not I have it. My family went to go get tested a couple of weeks ago, they waited eight to nine hours. It took several days to get the results back. That's a problem.

CUOMO: Big problem.

GUPTA: So what they're going to do in the meantime. Wear a mask.

CUOMO: So especially school season, because let me tell you something, no parent is going to wait seven Eight days to find out whether or not they should send their kid to school. You know, when someone has lice in school, I was just saying this to Ashish Jha, you know, they're on you and like half an hour, they start telling you that we have a case of lice, we have a case of like, they have to have the same kind of protocol in place for COVID. And nobody does.

GUPTA: Nobody does. And the average time of waiting has gone up in this country not down. And instinct study came out, you may have seen a Chris, maybe Ashish talked about it. If it takes longer than five days, it no longer has an impact on slowing the spread of the pandemic. Sure, you may still want to know whether you have it. But if it takes longer than five days, the problem is that people will, you know, during that time during those five days, continue to spread the virus not knowing whether or not they are positive. So that's the problem, not only the number of tests, but the speed at which they come back.

And by the way, Chris, I get you know, you and I talked about this early on, you kind of pounded on this issue early on, we're not doing enough testing. It's still the case in the problem hasn't gotten better. And I think this is a solvable problem. This is a fixable thing, we could have widespread, rapid, accurate testing in all sorts of locations around the country. And it wouldn't 100% solve the pandemic, but it would go a long way towards giving people both physical and psychological confidence moving forward.

CUOMO: Oh, yes. I mean, look, you and I have to deal with this. I shouldn't even compare myself to you. But even on a poor man's level, I mean, I deal with the virus 24/7, you know, every day people talking to me about needing tests and being sick and what they have and what they don't.

GUPTA: Yes.

CUOMO: The difference in someone's quality of life when they know they are sick versus not sick is huge. And just as we learn from philosophy long ago, anticipation of illness is worse than illness itself for a lot of people and this waiting is killing public sentiment. Because when you're like wait a minute, I'm going to wait hours to get this test and then I'm going to wait days to get the result and meanwhile you want me to lock the my house -- GUPTA: Right.

CUOMO: -- forget it.

GUPTA: And could you possibly infect your family, the people you love your community in those days. I mean, it's, there's a there's a guilt that goes with this as well. Which is why by the way, masks go a long way towards that.

[20:35:06]

CUOMO: Right?

GUPTA: I mean, you know, this is a little strand of RNA. You know, as scary as this whole thing is Chris, this is a little strand of RNA that's pretty easily contained by a mask, can't jump that far, doesn't like to be outdoors. I mean, this shouldn't be that hard. I mean, you know, other countries around the world. And I, you know, I always hesitate to draw these comparisons because I think we should be good for who we are not in comparison to someone else. But they've gotten it right in so many places. And what did they have? They didn't have anything will have.

CUOMO: They'd will, leadership and resolve. And when I say resolve, I don't mean resolve to sell Goya beads. RGB, pancreatic cancer back the treatment they say is satisfactory. We do not have to tell anybody how serious pancreatic cancer is, and nor how lucky and rare it is that the Justice got through a first wave. But what does this mean to you that there is a cancer really currents in terms of what it means for the Justice's quality life.

GUPTA: Well, you know, Chris, I'm concerned about this. We can show, you know, as much as we've heard about her over the years in terms of her time on the bench, but we've gotten to know her medical history as well. We can show this back in '99. She had colon cancer surgery. She's had, you know, pancreatic cancer surgery and treatment quite some time ago back in 2009. And then in the interim, she's had stuff done on her heart and her lungs. Last two lines, August 2019, she had another pancreatic cancer treatment. It was unclear at that point. Was this a new pancreatic cancer? Was it a recurrence? We know she got immunotherapy? That's the type of therapy to try and treat this.

What we're learning today, Chris, is that that immunotherapy really did not work. And in fact, in May of 2019, when she had this gallbladder treatment, what we now know today is that she also started another form of chemotherapy at that point, known as Gemcitabine. This is more of a palliative chemotherapy, Chris, not a typically thought of as a curative one. It may shrink tumors, it may reduce symptoms, reduce pain, things like that. I always hate talking about this, like this, but you know, it's not it's not the sort of thing that you're giving with the hopes that you're going to cure somebody. Every patient is different, people respond differently.

You saw her statement today said that it does seem to be working, she is having response. But I think you know, she's 87 years old, she said to recurrences now, seemingly of this pancreatic cancer, she's getting this chemotherapy, which is mainly designed to try and palliate as opposed to cure. So we'll get to keep an eye on things.

CUOMO: I mean, look, you have to believe that in this kind of situation, her age and stage, you would focus on this entirely. The fact that she's staying on the bench, and you know, you got to take her at her word, if she feels she's up to, what she's up to it. But it shows again, in a different context, how important her seat on that court is that she's literally putting her life on the line to stay there.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, I love you, have a great weekend.

GUPTA: You too buddy. Take care.

CUOMO: You probably haven't thought about RGB in that way, but think about it. You're her age, you got family, you got people you want to be with. Job matters, sure, she has an unusual job, but that she is putting her life on the line to stay in that seat, tells you how much she values the position, not just for herself, but what it means for the future jurisprudence in this country.

Nearly a million people have bought Mary Trump's book. The niece of President Trump has a runaway bestseller on her hands, but it's way more than that to me. She's a psychologist who's been around the President for a lot of his life. What does she see in him? What does she know about him that informs how he is for us. Mary Trump in depth conversation, next.

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[20:42:31]

CUOMO: Mary Trump, it's a big deal, why? She's the President's niece. So as a niece, she's been around him for a long time when cameras aren't around, when people speak freely. She's also a record breaking best selling author now because of her new tell-all book. But it's what this book does. You haven't seen something like this before. Because it's a look at the man, a man in the context of his own family and in a history of dirty business. Too Much and Never Enough is the title, How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man, nearly a million copies within a single day. It's number one on Amazon's bestseller list.

So, this comes because the Trump family lost a court battle to keep this book under wraps. A lawsuit that Mary Trump says was completely motivated by her uncle Donald. Mary Trump also revealed herself to be the source for The New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning story about Trump's engagement in tax schemes. She was freed from a restraining order this week to discuss the book. This is the longest interview I believe she's done, and it's worth it. She joins us now on Primetime.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Mary Trump, welcome to Primetime.

MARY TRUMP, AUTHOR, TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH: Thanks, Chris. It's great to be here. CUOMO: Appreciate you taking the opportunity. I was going to start the interview by saying you're in pretty rare air. You had written something about the President that is certainly critical in certain aspects and he hadn't sent anything back that just changed moments ago, he lumped you in with John Bolton referring to what he calls the Book of the Month Club, because John Bolton, a low life and a dummy, you do well by comparison, he comes to you second, he says, next up is Mary Trump. A seldom seen niece, who knows a little about me says untruthful things about my wonderful parents who couldn't stand her and me and violated her NDA, non disclosure agreement. She also broke the law by giving out my tax returns. She's a mess. Response.

TRUMP: I -- it's hard to know where to start. So let's start with the easy stuff first. A court ruled that I did not break the NDA, which is why I'm able to be here with you this evening. I had never had Donald's tax returns in my possession so I could not have released them to anybody. The documents I had were legally mine, which I obtained through discovery during the lawsuit I was engaged in with my family almost 20 years ago. And we're predominantly my grandfather's tax documents and his businesses, tax documents.

[20:45:11]

As for being seldom seen, I guess for Donald that is one of the biggest insults you can hurl at somebody. But I'm, I've been fine with it.

CUOMO: Why is it an insult for him?

TRUMP: I think he thinks being seen is something he values. So I'm not entirely sure.

CUOMO: Do you know him? Have you been around him enough to form an opinion?

TRUMP: Of course he was my dad's younger brother. We spent huge amounts of time in the house growing up. And Donald was there frequently, my uncle Rob was there frequently my aunts. So of course we spend every holiday together pretty much until my grandfather died in 1999.

CUOMO: And after that?

TRUMP: You know, it's hard to stay together as a family after you've been disinherited. And there's been a fairly bitter lawsuit. So, yes, since 1999, there's been very little contact, but, you know, before then he hired me to write his book for him, his second book, so that doesn't exactly square with my not being part of the family or might not having any knowledge of him. And, as for my grandparents, not being able to stand me. I think if that were true, it would say more about them than it says about me, but certainly in case of my grandmother, it was not true. We were very close. I really loved her and believe that she loved me. And, you know, my grandfather, I don't think was really had had real positive feelings towards anybody except perhaps Donald.

CUOMO: The ides of she's a mess. Other than trying to do discredit the book and your credibility. What do you think he's referring to?

TRUMP: I think it's just a, an attack he hurls. Predominantly, I think about women. And honestly, I'm in very good company, I believe he said the same thing about Nancy Pelosi. And I'm fine with that.

CUOMO: Let's take one step sideways. Do you think knowing your uncle the way you do? Do you think he believes that you violated the NDA? Do you think he believes the things that he says? Or do you think that he says what he thinks is effective?

TRUMP: You know, interestingly, I think both things can be true at the same time. And in this particular case, I honestly don't know because very often, what he says and/or believes depends upon who has his ear in the moment.

CUOMO: What does that mean?

TRUMP: That means that if somebody close to him is spitting facts in a way that are easier for him to take or believe, then then he will -- I mean, a judge made a ruling. So, if he's not believing the judge, the judges decision then clearly he's listening to somebody else.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Is it really that simple? A look inside how he was before he was president with somebody who was right there. Mary Trump. The President claims he knows little about her. She's got plenty of examples and firsthand experiences about him. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:52:45]

CUOMO: We're back now one-on-one with Mary Trump. The President's niece.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Inside the family was he known as the smart one?

TRUMP: No, not at all.

CUOMO: How was he regarded in your experience when He wasn't around, I guess more often than when he was.

TRUMP: You know, growing up. It's very difficult to gauge things like that because, you know, it's my dad's, my aunt's, my uncle's, my grandparents. So there wouldn't have been any discussion along those lines when I was a kid. What I did know, with absolute certainty was that he was absolutely the preferred child. And, because of that, and because of how he was presented to the world, and within the family, it was very easy to believe that he was incredibly successful on his own. So it wasn't until much later that I was able to tease out the truth of, you know, the fact that he really had been supported by my grandfather throughout.

CUOMO: You answered quickly when I said was he known as the smart one? You said no. Why is such a quick assessment?

TRUMP: Well, he hasn't changed much. And I think, you know, if we only knew him now and extrapolated backwards, it would be pretty obvious. You know, he's not intellectual, he doesn't seem to have any interest in learning, you know, has no intellectual curiosity. And being well educated does not make you well informed.

CUOMO: And when you were a kid, and growing up, what do you remember about him in terms of bearing and how he was with you and others?

TRUMP: He was supremely confident. He didn't have any reason not to be really. He could be dismissive, you know. He wasn't very interested in hanging out with us a lot. You know, we would play ball in the backyard once in a while, but he had other more important things to attend to.

[20:55:13]

I mean, we got along, you know. And he wouldn't he wouldn't have hired me to write his book if, you know, he had hated me, or thought badly of me. So, but I think it is fair to say that, we didn't really spend time together until I was working for him when I was in my 20s.

CUOMO: Couple of things that jumped out at me look in the book, you know, I offered, it always matters to me how somebody begins a book, not with their material, but often what they have in a preface, and a quote, or something that suggests direction. You have a quote from Les Mis about when a soul is in darkness.

TRUMP: Yes.

CUOMO: Sin may come, but the problem isn't the person who sins, it's the person who created the darkness.

TRUMP: Yes.

CUOMO: What does that quote mean to you in the context of you and writing this book?

TRUMP: Well, I think the reason I decided to use that quote, ultimately was because it worked on two very important levels that fit in really nicely with what I was trying to convey in the book. So in the context of my family, the person creating the darkness was my grandfather. And the person creating the citizens in that darkness would have been Donald.

Now, we're in a situation where it's Donald and his enablers creating the darkness and the less -- the rest of us are left to stumble around as best we can. And sometimes, you know, doing the wrong things, because we're not being led. We're not the truth is not being leveled at us. So it could be something as simple as wearing a mask or as egregious as committing hate crimes, which seems to be sadly endorsed to some degree by this administration.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: So where does that lead Mary Trump? More with her next. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right, I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome back to Primetime, where two hours tonight.

Let's not waste a moment of it. You've been listening to the niece of President Trump, Mary Trump. Tell us not just how she feels about her uncle, but an analysis of someone who grew up with him, but now is a clinician, she's a psychologist. Here's more of an in depth interview now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: It's interesting to me because my central criticism of your uncle is that he knows better. I do not ascribe to this notion of him as a stupid man.