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Cuomo Prime Time

Seventeen-Year-Old High School Athlete Loses Both Parents To COVID-19 Days Apart; President Trump Claims Virus Is "Receding" But Science Shows Otherwise; According To NYT, Scientists Worry About Political Influence Over Coronavirus Vaccine Project; President Trump Losing Ground And Time In 2020 Election; More Than 100 Million At Risk From Hurricane Isaias. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired August 03, 2020 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Keep being that every step of the way, and we'll be watching.

JUSTIN HUNTER, LOSES BOTH PARENTS TO COVID-19: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. God bless you, young man. Justin Hunter, our thanks to him, and we'll let you know how he is doing, if he wants. He is so courageous. Let's carry that courage into more coverage of what matters to all of us together. Let's continue it right now.

We all want this to be over. It's not going to just be over because we want it to, not until a couple of things happen. You have to act together as people who collectively want the same thing. We are saying we want the same thing, but we are not doing the things that we need to do.

And we have to demand of our leaders -- local, state, congressional and, yes, presidential. It's not enough to say to wear a mask. Not now. You have the U.K. getting tests back in 90 minutes. We can do the same thing here.

I know it's after 10. Usually Don will be yelling at me. He's on vacation this week. I'm doing two hours all week long. I'm happy, too. He deserves the break. We have plenty to talk about because we are all being faced tonight with not just tragedy, but travesty. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The virus is receding in hot spots across the south and west. We've seen slow improvements from their recent weekly peaks. I think we're doing very well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Tell that to Justin Hunter, who just lost his parents. Tell that to communities all over the country. They aren't able to get their kids back to school. Because we can't get tests back soon enough. Because they don't have the resources to contact trace, to get them tests. How? How in the richest country on the face of the planet? How are they doing it in the U.K.? How are we doing well?

If you actually look at the science, if you actually listen to the scientists, he would know we aren't. But you know what? I don't give him that excuse. I know this president knows the reality. He is hoping that you are dumb enough to be deceived.

So let's give you the state of play, the truth, the facts nationwide tonight from Sara Sidner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, HHS: We are very concerned. This is a very serious point. Deaths will continue to increase for the next few weeks.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The coronavirus is still spreading out of control in parts of the United States, and death tolls are continuing to climb.

The CDC protecting 19,000 Americans over the next 20 days could die if the current trajectory continues.

One reason why? The U.S. is in a new phase, according to the White House's point person on COVID response, Dr. Deborah Birx.

DEBORAH BIRX, CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR FOR THE WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE: What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread. It's into the rural as equal urban areas. And to everybody who lives in a rural area, you are not immune or protected from this virus.

SIDNER (voice-over): The numbers back that up. July's total new cases more than double that of any other previous month.

The hot spots are mostly flaring up in the south and west. Mississippi is now the highest percentage of positive COVID-19 cases in the country with a staggering 21 percent positivity rate. South Carolina follows with 18 percent as Isaias strengthens, threatening its shores.

In Florida, the storms winds force some testing sites to close for a bit, creating a drop in confirmed cases. Those sites are now back open.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): We are encouraged by some of the trends we are seeing. We continue to see a downward trend in visits to the emergency department.

SIDNER (voice-over): Still, Florida is on the verge of hitting 500,000 confirmed coronavirus infections.

California with nearly double Florida's population has already surpassed that terrible milestone. Despite that, in a state order, shutting down bars three weeks ago in Los Angeles, dozens attended a party thrown for first responders without masks or physical distancing. The county health department is investigating, saying, "This is exactly the situation that put our entire community at unnecessary risk."

In New York, which has now nearly conquered the virus, dozens were caught partying on a charter boat, ignoring the state's large crowd ban. The owners of that vessel, arrested.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): It is just really reckless, rude, irresponsible, and illegal.

SIDNER (voice-over): Across America, schools are beginning to open up now. Indiana and Georgia are already seeing coronavirus infections, forcing some students to return to virtual learning next week.

[22:05:01]

SIDNER (voice-over): Birx saying in-person learning should not occur in COVID-19 hot spots.

BIRX: We are asking people to distance learn at this moment so we can get this epidemic under control.

SIDNER (voice-over): A special education teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma is expressing fear of returning to the classroom and regret for voting for a president she believes has botched the pandemic response.

NANCY SHIVELY, SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER: Watching the failure of leadership in our country, beginning with the president, over the course of this pandemic, it's not just my death warned I might have signed, but there is 150,000 Americans who are dead because of this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Sara, thank you so much. You know, all across this country, people like you and me with families, we are all getting into a jam, we are all sitting back and waiting, waiting to see what schools do. But we know the answer. Everybody is going to hedge it best. Nobody is going back to normal anytime soon.

And the president says, yeah, but you know what, we're doing a hell of a lot better than a lot of other countries. What did you learn?

SIDNER: Look, it's simply not true. If you take just this number, the projected, the trajectory of what is going to happen over the next 20 days, the CDC estimates 18,000 people are going to die in America over the next 20 days. That means that almost 1,000 people per day are going to die because of coronavirus. That cannot be and is not better than most other countries.

CUOMO: Sara, thank you so much. Best to you and the family. Stay healthy. Appreciate the good work.

Let's bring in Dr. William Schaffner. Welcome back to "Prime Time." You know, sometimes, doc, it is a matter of perspective. This is not a matter of perspective. What the president is telling the American people can't be true, according to his own bases of information. Admiral Giroir, in charge of the testing, what does he say? The next few weeks are going to be really bad. What few weeks? Is it three, is it 13, who knows, it's open ended.

Dr. Birx, what's happening is widespread and bad, it's entering a worse phase.

He says, I think we are doing really well, I'm seeing lot of good things are changing. He can't reach that conclusion based on what the people around him are saying, right? I mean, is there any other way to see it?

WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: I don't think so. Chris, you know, Justin Hunter, I was just so impressed with that young man. His is a perspective that is the telling one because the virus has taken his parents. That is all preventable. It should not have happened.

I agree with Dr. Birx. You and I have been saying for some time that this virus has left the municipalities, the cities. It's now in the small towns. It's spread out in the countryside also. It's over large swaths of this country and it's moving ahead with very little control.

We are a city that has a mask order. But if you went downtown this weekend where people congregate and the tourists go, you didn't see very many masks.

So, we're in the position of having this huge disconnect from reality. I think our national leaders are on the fiction side of the library. We are over here on the facts side and trying to deal with it locally because we don't have national leadership.

CUOMO: You know, you are in Tennessee, the Georgia School District story, 260 employees tested positive for COVID-19 or had been exposed. The metro Atlanta district is the largest school system. Gwinnett County is the second highest COVID rate cases, 17,000 cases.

What is the story there? The way that it is coming out, as you see, they just can't test and get the results fast enough for this to be safe. Is it as simple as that?

SCHAFFNER: Well, that's certainly one of the elements. Because we haven't been testing, our cases in the community are spreading. This is the circumstance where we are trying to open up the schools, which we want to be as safe as possible not only for the children but for everybody associated with the schools, working in the schools, and this is going to be very difficult.

We are going to have any number of circumstances like these, similar to it, clusters of cases appearing, and then the schools having to back off and to do virtual learning once again because we the adults haven't been able to control this virus through our own behavior, working together in our communities.

[22:09:59] CUOMO: Imagine if we could have results in 90 minutes! Even if they're 40 percent accurate, you know, which is one of the downsides of these quick tests, if you could do that every day, the way they're doing in the U.K., what a difference that would make.

And the good news is, we can do it here, but the man at the top has to call for it.

Dr. William Schaffner, thank you very much. Be well.

SCHAFFNER: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. The president is acting far more interested in a cure for what is ailing him politically than what will save this country from the endless wrath of a pandemic.

What I don't get is the answer is the same in both cases. Why doesn't he see that if he jumps in and does what they just did in the U.K., that's his best chance of winning again!

The White House is pushing a vaccine. It's not going to be ready as an October surprise.

Carl Bernstein on what he sees here in terms of political cost and analogy, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: This president doesn't tell you the truth about this pandemic. He doesn't give you the right direction. He attacks the people around him that are there to give you the truth.

[22:14:59]

CUOMO: But he does to one thing consistently: vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, which is good, right? But the sense of urgency, the sense of any day now that he gives, first of all, doesn't do anything for anyone who is sick right now when he could be doing that by getting us better testing that could literally be weeks away.

Think about it. As much suck as there is right now, we could be six to eight weeks away from it being so much better. But he is not dealing with that. He's dealing with a vaccine. So, he's not helping us get schools open. He's not helping us deal with the cases now. But he is saying he is going to get a magic cure.

Now, a vaccine isn't a magic cure. We don't even know who would take it. We don't even know how effective it would be. There is testing going on. But this is about politics for him.

The New York Times, OK, they're reporting that scientists fear that the push for a vaccine is more hype than it will be science.

Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein is here to help us put this in context. Good to see you, big brother.

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: Good to be with you.

CUOMO: We believe Fauci. We believe Operation Warp Speed. We believe that they have all-star science team and they're moving this along, that the government putting billions of dollars behind it will help speed it up because they're going to put it in the production, assuming it will work.

That's all true as far as we know. But what do you think the stretch play is here politically?

BERNSTEIN: I think we have to recognize that we have a national emergency unlike anything in our history. That national emergency is that we have a president of the United States who is demonstrably unfit, incompetent, not honest, and not capable of dealing with this horrible situation.

We need a political and cultural protector in this country between now and Election Day from the president of the United States and his recklessness. People are dead because of his recklessness.

We need the political system to respond, which means Republicans particularly, because the Republicans on Capitol Hill as well as those who left the White House, they know he is not a stable individual. They have told dozens of people, they believe the president of the United States is out of control, that he is not fit to be the president of the United States.

We need to be protected from this president so that we can be protected from COVID.

CUOMO: One question about inside the box, one question outside the box. Inside the box, what is the explanation, as best as you can get, Carl, about why he refuses to do what would be politically obvious to you and me, which is own this and say, I gave the states long enough, I'm all in, we can do the testing, six to eight weeks?

There's plenty of time before the election to show a demonstrable change like what they're seeing in the U.K. right now. What do you hear about inside why he thinks ignoring this works?

BERNSTEIN: Because everything is about the base, as he calls it, and getting the base to somehow re-elect him or get him close enough to reelection that he can then put into authoritarian practice, some kind of mechanism that will allow him to hold on to power, perhaps through (ph) the election into the House of Representatives, which indeed is being talked about in the White House.

You have to remember that the day before the president finally said, well, people should be wearing masks, the epidemiologist came to the president of the United States -- and I know this from people in the White House -- and said, Mr. President, this is beyond a national emergency. This situation is on fire. You must act but this cannot be contained right now because it is out of control.

His message has not been this is out of control. He has been told by those closest to him. But what we see is that once again, as throughout his presidency, he has no ability or interest in the welfare of the United States as a people, as an entity.

And he's much more interested, for instance, when you look at relations with Vladimir Putin of Russia. He's much more interested in showing what a tough guy he is to Putin than solving the greatest problem that a United States president has faced at home in generations.

We are in need of action by the political system and Republicans on Capitol Hill, including the craven Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell understands that this president is not capable of being a fit president of the United States.

And it is time, as happened in the Nixon presidency, what happened in the Nixon presidency? A group of Republicans led by the great conservative Barry Goldwater and by the minority leader of the House and by the republican leadership marched to the White House and said to Richard Nixon, you are unfit to remain in office, you must leave the presidency, and we will no longer support you.

[22:19:57]

BERNSTEIN: Something similar has got to happen in some kind of conscience rendering by Republicans to save us and to save lives in this country.

CUOMO: You know, Carl, we always say that we're concerned about people losing faith in the system and expecting this type of perfidy from politicians. But the real danger, the real shame is that the politicians may have lost their sense of dignity and decency and the duty that they have for the people who put them there.

Carl Bernstein, as always --

BERNSTEIN: That's all true.

CUOMO: -- thank you for making us better and smarter tonight. Be healthy. I miss you.

BERNSTEIN: Good to be with you. Good to see you.

CUOMO: All right. At the White House today, the president holding up a map -- OK, I'll show it to you -- of all these COVID hot spots. They're hot spots. That's what on the map. OK? If you look at the color queue, most of that is bad, what's on there. He holds it up and says, this is good. All right?

Another map that is a key to his fate shows also things that are really bad for him right now because they are reflexion of what you think all over this country about him.

The tale of two maps as told by the wizard of odds, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: At his cabinet meeting today, the president held up a map of the coronavirus hot spots. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: I think we're doing a great job. I think we're doing great on vaccine. We're doing great on therapeutics. You'll be seeing that very soon. I think we're -- when you look at the map, this is a map of the -- I've sort of showing that around a little bit. But that's -- the red is the area of most concern.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Those red places, Florida, Arizona, they now correspond with political problems for this president where he should not have them, but mostly because they're yellow on this map. In other words, meaning, they are now key battleground states.

Coronavirus is starting to equate with a political virus for this president. The proof is in the money. The Trump campaign spending is now heavily on ads in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. Why?

The wizard of odds, Harry Enten, is here to tell us why. Good to see you, young brother. Why do we see this shift and what do you see in the numbers?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER AND ANALYST: I mean, let's take a look at those numbers, right? Take a look at the recent polling averages from those four states. What do you see? You know, I averaged out all the polls. All of those states, they're quite competitive. These are states that Donald Trump won four years ago.

And with the exception of Georgia, you see that Biden actually has the advantage. And in a state like Florida, right, which of course is the swingiest state of all, the key state of all, Biden has a six-point lead in the average and is at that key 50 percent threshold. So, not a big surprise that they are going back into those states right now.

CUOMO: You sent me the note that no Republican has won the White House without North Carolina, where Biden is up 49, 46 since Eisenhower. I say pish posh. Trump winds up winning all four of these states, much to do about nothing. Is that the end? If he wins them, is it over?

ENTEN: No. And that's the amazing thing, right, if you look at the electoral map, is that those four states are states that Trump -- look, you can create scenarios in which Trump doesn't win those four states and somehow gets to the White House but it is very hard to get that scenario, right?

But you can paint much easier the scenarios where Biden wins none of those four and he wins in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, those are the states that Hillary Clinton won four years ago, and you do in fact have Biden at 278 electoral votes. So even if we go into your scenario, Christopher, in which Biden doesn't win despite the fact that he's leading in three to four right now, Biden would still in fact still have a path.

CUOMO: Another good point that you make. Lots to do, not a lot of time to do it. Everybody thinks November 3rd. You say, back up. How much?

ENTEN: Yeah. So, this, I think, is really key, right? We all think of Election Day as occurring on November 3rd. But in fact, they're going to be a ton of states that start voting in only about a month, right?

North Carolina, the absentee ballots get sent to those voters, get this, in 31 days on September 4th. Pennsylvania, September 14th. Georgia, September 19th. Michigan, September 19th. These are all key battleground states that Trump won in 2016.

So when he's going into those states and putting those ads back on the air, the number of them, he's trying to get to those early voters, but he is in fact missing them in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

So, you know, we think of Election Day as one big day, but in this year, especially, those early ballots, those early absentees, that's a real deadline we have to pay attention to.

CUOMO: So that's why he's going after mail-in balloting because it's happening sooner. That's why he was dangling, moving the election later, not sooner, right, which logically could have been an equal conclusion.

Hey, the pandemic maybe really bad in November. Now, it's great. We should all be reopening. Then logically, he would be calling for the election to be sooner. He didn't do that which means he is trying to buy time and rightly so.

You say -- you know what, one of the interesting things here is that you believe in increase in voting absentee or by mail will be real and it will mean something on Election Day as well, which will be a decrease on voting day. How so? I get it logically if more people vote earlier. But how do you think we'll see that?

ENTEN: Right. I mean, look, I mean, there was a Fox News poll that asked this question a few months ago and essentially said, how are you going to vote, early by absentee --

CUOMO: Yeah.

ENTEN: -- early in-person or on Election Day? And what you see is people normally say -- the vast majority said they normally vote on Election Day in-person. But in fact, those same voters this year are under 50 percent.

And one of the things that I think is a key, if you add that in-person early voting to the by mail or absentee voting, what you see is basically 50 percent of this country maybe voting before Election Day.

[22:30:05]

ENTEN: And that means the clock, my friend, if I had an actual watch on this hand, I don't wear a watch, but if I had a watch, I would be pointing to it, the clock is ticking.

And so, you know, Trump doesn't want necessarily people to be voting in a month from now or two months from now because he wants as much time as possible to get to Election Day so he can sort of stretch out the field and have more time to come back in this election.

CUOMO: I can't believe you have any clothes on without access to my closet. Forget about a watch. I've never seen you wear so much clothes that aren't mine as we have since COVID.

You know what, though, I'm going to use one of your own notes against you. Trump's numbers have stabilized for at least a month. I didn't need you to tell me that.

But I will tell you this. That is why I'm so suspicious of these polls you keep throwing in my face, because as bad as it is, he has stabilized. And if he decides to do anything other than lie, defy and deny the obvious in this pandemic, it's a long time even until September, fair point?

ENTEN: I mean, look, here's the deal. This is why we don't, you know, count our chickens before they hatch, right? This is why at this particular point, you know, Trump still has a real shot of winning this. You know, if you were to basically average out the odds from the model with what the betting market suggests, he has about a one in five shot.

That's the Mario Mendoza (ph) line, right? We have spoken about that before on the "Overnight." And so there's a legitimate shot here. But there's no doubt that he is an underdog. I think just sort of the press generally speaking, we have to get forth through the audience that while Trump is in fact an underdog and there is a better shot that Biden wins, Trump still has a legitimate shot of winning this election.

CUOMO: Very legitimate. When you count your chickens before they hatch, you often get egg on your face. Mixed metaphor but message delivered.

Harry Enten, be well.

ENTEN: You be well, too, as I wear the shorts.

CUOMO: Breaking news, hurricane watches all up and down the East Coast. Why? Well, Isaias is continuing to strengthen. How much?

Let's get to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri. PJ, bring us up to speed about what we are seeing and what our current path is likelihood.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Chris, you know, we're just about an hour outside of landfall here, somewhere on the border of north and South Carolina, more on that in a minute. But a remarkable storm system when you factor in tropical storm watches and warnings stretch out of areas from Florida at 1,500 mile, stretch all the way up there towards the coast of Maine, first time since 1960 we have had a storm.

Keep in mind, of course, hundreds of storms across the Atlantic. This particular one is first one since 1960. That is that expansive of a coverage area for tropical storm warnings and hurricane warnings.

It is a Category 1 hurricane. In fact, in the last hour, the National Hurricane Center is issuing an additional special advisory, increasing the wind speed from 75 miles per hour up to 85 miles per hour.

There is the center of circulation. Within the next hour, this moves ashore, somewhere near Holden Beach, just south of Wilmington. Again, it is strengthening as it approaches land.

And the concern is that the forward progression here really picks up over the next 24 hours. So it makes landfall here and brings in tremendous rainfall across the region. We are certainly going to see a flooding risk and of course storm surge.

If you have been outside, look at the moon. There's a full moon. So the lunar astronomical high tide for the month of August is taking place at this very moment as the storm is in its works ashore. And then of course, the system here really picks up that forward progression.

So, by lunchtime on Tuesday, it's pushing right over portions of Chesapeake Bay, certainly to the (INAUDIBLE) on into Philly by the afternoon and evening hours.

The center of circulation incredibly with this, Chris, could be right over New York City by about 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. still as a tropical storm. So really, when you see that pick up in its forward speed there, it really says quite a bit. We think that could be a major, major issue here, of course, for an area such as New York City.

Of course, Hurricane Sandy, Superstorm Sandy, back in 2012, had wind gusts of about 70 miles per hour. This would be the strongest wind gusts since that time. It should be right around 70 miles per hour. It is strongest right around New York City into the afternoon hours and kind of follows the rapid progression of this. Park it in place around say 5:30.

Philly and New York, there's the center of the storm. You will notice it pushes in potentially just west of New York City there. So, the contours here, Chris, that are in the dark red and purple, those are the highest winds, over 65 to 75 miles per hour. That could be felt in that region.

Of course, the canopy of the northeast when it comes to trees there is at height right now, so a lot of sale essentially happening with these trees, and we think power outages are going to be widespread across that region.

CUOMO: For the people in the northeast, when you say Superstorm Sandy, they will remember. Me and your boy, Sam Champion, meteorologist, extraordinaire weatherman, extraordinaire, spent a night on top of our car in Southern Manhattan --

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: -- watching all the flooding around us. We did not know what was going to happen. Cars were floating through Manhattan in the southern part.

JAVAHERI: Yeah.

CUOMO: PJ, thank you very much. Keep us abreast with the information. I'm (INAUDIBLE) away if there is anything people have to know on my watch.

[22:35:01]

CUOMO: All right --

JAVAHERI: Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: -- conspiracy theories and Islamophobe was close to becoming a top Pentagon official. That is until CNN's K-File started digging into his past. So, why is this president taking that reality and ignoring it and doing an end run, basically giving the guy the same job without that pesky constitutional check and balance? Only the best? Drain the swamp?

Let's ask a senator who is called that retired general unfit. What does she think about this move, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Just days after the Senate blocked former Army Brigadier General Anthony Tata from taking a top Pentagon post, Trump has found a way to skirt it.

[22:40:05]

CUOMO: Today, the White House officially withdrew Tata's nomination for undersecretary of defense for policy. But only so that Tata could take the deputy position under that role.

Why? The rules say, if Tata stays there for 90 days, he can take the original job he wanted in an acting capacity. No Senate approval required.

Reminder, this is the third highest position in the Pentagon and it could be held by a man who has pushed dangerous conspiracy theories and has a history of making Islamophobic remarks.

He falsely called former President Obama a Muslim and a terrorist leader and accused him of supporting foreign interference in elections. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono is on the Armed Services Committee that scrapped Tata's hearing last week. Welcome back to "Prime Time." Trump wins, you lose.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): I think the country loses to this guy. Anything that the president does should come as no surprise to us, because the biggest thing that General Tata has going for him is his extreme loyalty to Trump and, of course, that gets the president's attention.

CUOMO: Right. But senator, you know his play. His play is, you guys are bad, it's all politics with you, you want to keep people who are from outside, who want to go against you, who want to do things the right way, you want to keep it all, the insiders game, and Tata is one of those guys. What do you want people to know about him?

HIRONO: He's a racist. He's a conspiracy theorist. He has very bizarre comments that he makes about Islam as the most terrible religion he can think of. He is insulting millions of Muslims, not to mention the 6,000 Muslims who serve honorably in our military.

He comes up with these bizarre accusations about Obama, which you mentioned. And that's not the kind of stable person who deals in reality that we should have as another person in the Department of Defense.

CUOMO: Mm-hmm.

HIRONO: Did you know, Chris, that about one-third of all the confirmable positions in the DOD are filled by people in an acting capacity? We all remember the president saying he likes to have people in acting capacity so he can just get rid of them.

CUOMO: Right. Now, senator, obviously you are a Democrat from Hawaii. Where are Republicans on Tata in the Senate?

HIRONO: There's not anywhere they're not saying it publicly. And so that is sadly also very typical of Republicans. That probably is one of the major reasons that the Tata nomination was withdrawn. I think he was too much even for the Republicans who usually are in lockstep with the president.

But I think some of them might have been in trouble if they voted for this guy, the racist, Islamophobic, not very well qualified, and so there is a strange thing about how he escaped being court martialed. Those are court martial offenses in the military code of justice.

CUOMO: Got you. He sent you guys a letter, to the leaders of your committee. He said, I'm sorry for the social media tweets, they are tweets, I have a lifetime of public service, 28 years in the army, retired in 2009, this isn't me, and the 28 years is me. What do you think?

HIRONO: I don't believe it. And clearly, he was trying to get Trump's attention by putting out all of those extreme kinds of views, including by the way letting the -- putting it out there that the Clintons (ph) were engaged in assassination attempts. How bizarre is that?

As I said, that is not a stable person. By the way, he wasn't putting these tweets out and making statements when he was a kid. He was retired. He was a retired general. There's no excuse. Not to mention that he didn't say he was sorry for holding these views. He just said -- I think he is sorry that he got caught.

CUOMO: So what do you think you can do about it now?

HIRONO: There is this thing called election coming around the corner, thank goodness.

CUOMO: And you think this is something that people will take into consideration?

HIRONO: They should take Trump into consideration. The fact that we're in the midst of three crises, we're on a pandemic, we have an economic crisis, and we have systemic racism in our country, and Trump, the president, has this law and in any of those crises, he takes no responsibility for anything.

[22:45:00]

HIRONO: He just wants people around him who will say yes to him. That's his main thing. As I said, that is the biggest thing going for General Tata. He is an extreme partisan and very, very close to Trump.

CUOMO: Senator --

HIRONO: We don't need that in the Department of Defense.

CUOMO: Sometimes, you know, in terms of what we need in terms of defense right now, sometimes when I see people on the floor of Congress, you know, doing something theatrical or making a grand show, sometimes I'm like, well, this is just political theater, we'll see what they actually get done.

I actually feel differently about where we are right now. I encourage you and any colleagues, right or left that you can get, to make any show of outrage and demand for action about testing and getting us where the U.K. is right now, that you can do. Senator, this matters for about --

HIRONO: Democrats, Chris --

CUOMO: Yes.

HIRONO: -- Democrats have been saying that about testing, that we need a national testing plan, we need a national contact tracing plan, we need a much better distribution for all of the PPEs, etcetera. But as I said, the president at the very beginning said, I take no responsibility, you governors are on your own.

And therefore, all the governors, including Hawaii, they had to fend for themselves and getting these materials. This is a pandemic, for god's sake, but the president takes no responsibility. And then you have Mitch McConnell sitting back. The Democrats in the Senate are ready to negotiate the Heroes bill that has support for workers --

CUOMO: Right.

HIRONO: -- for the states and local governments two months ago and only now is Mitch McConnell is saying, well, OK, maybe we'll talk about it and he came up with some eight separate bills because his own caucus can't get together on what they're going to do for the American people.

CUOMO: I'm with you. I'm getting it. I'm just saying --

HIRONO: Yeah.

CUOMO: -- desperate times call for desperate measures, and desperate people should do desperate things. And right now, we have a window of somewhere between six and 10 weeks.

And once we get passed that 10 weeks, as you know, senator, your home state and my home state here in New York and all across this country, kids are going to be done for the first half of the school year. The economic impact is going to be huge.

HIRONO: Yes.

CUOMO: The louder we can be, the louder everyone can be, right and left, unreasonable, the better.

Senator Mazie Hirono, thank you for making the case, as always. God bless and be safe.

HIRONO: Thank you so much. Everyone, stay safe, be kind.

CUOMO: All right. Look, there's a lot going on, right? A lot is going on in your life. A lot is going on in my life. We're doing two hours of "Prime Time" all week. By the way, that's easy.

One of the things I'd like to do for this week is -- I'm going to be 50 this weekend. I know. I know. I was doing better before COVID, right? We all know that. I'm going to do a lesson every night that I have learned in my five decades, that I think are going to be really relatable and probably learned by a lot of you.

And I think that it will be instructive because right now, we're learning about ourselves and learning about what we need to be for one another, right? I have learned things, as well. Lesson number one tonight is right after this.

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[22:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CUOMO: I am going to be 50, August 9th. I smile because I can't believe it. Before I got sick, I didn't care at all about turning 50. I was like, 50, what does that mean, I am almost as strong as I ever have been, doing what I want to do, thank god my family is healthy, bring it on.

Now, I am in a totally different place and I have to convince myself every day that things are going to get better. Now, I know relatively I am incredibly blessed, but all pain is personal, right?

Five different decades, a lot of lessons, but I will try and break them down in ways that I think are relatable to a lot of people right now, sick or not.

Lesson number one is that it is very important that you believe that life is good, even when it isn't good. Why? Two reasons, one, life is good because, objectively, better than the alternative, right, which is death, which is always bad.

However, I am going to put an asterisk on that. Why? It takes me to the second aspect, the subjective aspect. Life is good. What about when you're poor? What about when you're sick? What about when you feel preyed upon? What about when you're abused? What about when you can't do what you want to do, when you can't be with who you love, when you're not loved? Is it good then? No, it's not.

But what -- let's say you are in so much pain that you can't take it, that you don't want to be here. We are in a culture that doesn't deal with that pain as if it had purpose, and that pain, as if it were real, is real as a tumour. What would you do if one morning, God forbid, you went like this and you felt something on the side of your neck? You would go right to the doctor, you would get help. We don't do that when the pain is inside, when the tumour is on the seed (ph). We should.

The second part of the answer is that life is still good because you say it is. Your perspective on trouble and problems is everything. It doesn't mean that they're not real. It doesn't mean that the obstacle is not there. It doesn't mean that the challenge isn't there. But what are you going to do with it?

We don't quit, human beings. Sometimes, of course, people succumb. It is not a judgment. But I have learned that life is what you make it, if you're fortunate, if you're fortunate, and you create your own fortune, if you decide to see things in your life the way Justin, the teenager that you met tonight, did.

[22:55:07]

CUOMO: I thought I was going to cry. Not because I feel badly for him. Because, boy, does he have some precocious sense of righteousness and of God being on his side and love being around him and he will honor his two parents who are just in their 50s and died four days apart from COVID.

Justin Hunter. There is a "Go Fund Me" page. You should look. He didn't break my heart. He filled my heart. I almost cried because of the sense of joy and understanding that you can have perspective on such abject and obvious pain, because it is what you decide to make with it.

Every challenge is real. It is not a judgment. But I have learned that life is good either because it is -- and thank God for you and be blessed -- or because it is what you decide to make it. It's not easy. But I know it's true.

We will be right back.

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