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Dr. Anthony Fauci Warns Some Cities in U.S. Face Continued Increases in Coronavirus Cases; Doctor States New York Safe to Reopen Schools Due to Low Coronavirus Positive Rates; Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is Interviewed About the Stimulus Negotiations and Where Things Stand. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 06, 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: Continues to spread.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY.

And breaking news, moments ago right here on NEW DAY Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that several major American cities need to take action now or risk a potential disaster. Those cities had first been singled out by Dr. Fauci's colleague, Dr. Deborah Birx, for these dangerous spikes in coronavirus positivity rates. These cities include Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Kansas City. You can see others there in the Midwest as well as California. Here's Dr. Fauci.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Unless everybody pulls together and gets the level way down of a baseline, we're going to continue to see these kinds of increases that Dr. Birx was talking about in several of those cities. That's what I mean by smoldering. You have got to get that baseline down, and everybody on this group, everybody on the team of American citizens need to pull together, because we're all in this together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Fauci also offered some hope, suggested that the U.S. can flatten the curve and start to reopen the economy at the same time if people follow social distancing guidelines. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Some people tend to think you either need to shut down completely, or some people then think let it rip. Just do anything you want. No. You can proceed to open up the country and get the economy back even when you have situations that we have now, so long as everybody does the five or six fundamental things that I mentioned. So we have to get away from that all or none phenomenon. It's not. We can carefully proceed.

We saw in Arizona, which was a good example, they went up and they started to really clamp down and do things right. And the cases came right down. We can do that throughout those areas that are surging.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent, and Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. And Sanjay, the question that we were asking was about these cases that are rising, the positivity rates in these nine cities. He does seemed concerned that there are predictors that there should be reason for concern there. But he also said that we can bend it down, Sanjay. What did you hear?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and he's been saying that, I think, for some time now, and there's evidence of that around the world. There's clearly places, as you have shown these graphs this morning, John, where places around the world have bent the curve down. Some of them have upward trajectories similar to the United States.

And we bent the curve down as well. The problem was we didn't bend it far enough and sort of got a little bored, it seemed, as we bent it down halfway. I think what's concerning, you have the hot spots around the country that Ambassador Birx is identifying based on positivity. When we're looking at some of the polling data still in the country, people are becoming increasingly mobile. This is a big vacation time for the year. And there's -- there are about half the country is sort of wearing masks. It may be a little bit more in certain places versus others, but as a whole, about half the country is wearing masks. That's not enough. So yes, we have shown we're capable of bending the curve down. We're still not doing all that we need to to make that happen.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Jha, I thought that Dr. Fauci, as always, threaded the needle expertly in terms of basically the false narrative, the false narrative that we often hear from President Trump of, you either have shut down and ruin the economy, or as Dr. Fauci said, let her rip. And that's not what you experts have been telling us. Neither of those for all of these weeks and months. There's a middle ground that somehow President Trump doesn't often talk about in terms of what else to do.

DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: Yes. So that's exactly right, and the problem is that if you look at things in extremes, then both policy solutions have really substantial costs. And I actually really like the analogy that Governor Newsom of California has used, which is the idea of a dimmer switch. So instead of turning everything on completely bright, going back to normal, or turning everything off, we should have a dimmer switch. And when things start rising, you start clamping down.

And the major things that we have -- major tools that we have, of course as Dr. Gupta said, everybody needs to be wearing a mask, and that's going to be a really important feature, but things like bars, restaurants, indoor gatherings, you can shut them down when things start to rising too much. And then you can let some of them relax a little bit if your caseloads get low enough. But we have to just be much more nuanced about this. It can't be black and white -- black or white or all or nothing.

[08:05:01]

BERMAN: Sanjay, as you look around the country and you see the cases coming down in Arizona, but the positivity rates rising in other places, how likely is it that that baseline gets lowered to that area where Dr. Fauci it needs to be, which you say is like 3,000 cases a day?

GUPTA: It's concerning still. I think it's hard because we're still becoming increasingly mobile around this country. People are moving around quite a bit. So I think it's tough to look at a particular place and say they're out of the woods, they're not vulnerable anymore. I think every place is vulnerable. Sadly I think even where you are is still vulnerable, as good as the story has been in New York.

When I have talked to people around the country reporting on this story, what you find is that places can be doing fine and then suddenly have a problem. And it's sometimes tied to just a few big superspreading events. So most of the community could have been doing fine, but you have a big superspreading event, and one or a few people spread it to several hundred people, and then they keep spreading it. And you can get into thousands, even tens of thousands pretty quickly.

That's the thing. I think the vigilance has to be really, really significant everywhere. And we've got to be honest. People have to do these things honestly and diligently in a widespread way, wearing the masks, avoiding these large, clustered indoor gatherings like Dr. Jha was saying, washing hands often, all of the things that we have been talking about for some time.

I just think we have to do it diligent for a period of several weeks across the country. That's why a national plan is necessary. Even in places that think hey, look, we're good, we got through this. Everyone has got to do this for a few weeks and then we can get the numbers down to that level.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, tell us about your concerns about the polio-like symptoms that we're seeing with this.

GUPTA: Yes. Every couple of years -- and it's interesting, we're not even entirely sure why, but every two years, so last time, 2018, you may remember, because it's very frightening when it happens, rare thankfully, but a certain number of kids, a few hundred people will develop a polio-like illness. It's called AFM, Acute Flaccid Myelitis. It's associated with another virus that circulates, especially in the fall. And these are some of the symptoms it can cause -- limb weakness and paralysis, just like polio. Kids may initially have difficulty talking, swallowing. It can look -- it can be alarming but you may not know what it is. They may just complain of back pain initially, or just facial, you may notice facial weakness.

Here's the issue is that every two years it does seem to come back. And again, we don't know why every two years, but this would be the year. So doctors and parents and everybody has to be on the lookout for it, be able to distinguish it from coronavirus-like symptoms, and also not be fearful about going to talk to your doctor or going to the hospital if you see these symptoms.

One thing I'll suggest, we did this in our own house hold already, is that we have established a telehealth system in our household. We didn't have a particular problem, but telehealth ash become so ubiquitous now, we have a way of contacting our physician, our pediatrician should we have any problems. I suggest every family should do that. Even if you're not in the urgent situation, create a telehealth sort of system so something like this happens, you can get it checked out.

GUPTA: At my house we have a hotline, it's practically a red phone where we call the doctor and say my kid has a fish hook in his arm again. My kids sliced his finger again.

CAMEROTA: I don't think that's connected.

BERMAN: I know. That's different. Whenever the phone rings, the doctor assumes it's from us.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Dr. Jha, you know a lot of the times during this pandemic you have come on with grim reality, but you have a different perspective when it comes to New York. I want to do a dramatic reading now of something you tweeted out yesterday, because it's notable. You're talking about New York. You say "I often tweet about states struggling, so now a wonderful success story, New York, doing 67,000 tests a day, finding 670 cases a day, one percent test positivity. This is South Korea level, and it's awesome. Transmission level so low New York can, with proper precautions, open schools safely." Now, I will note you're not talking about March and April in New York, you're talking about now in New York and what can happen. So you think that this is where schools can and should open.

JHA: Yes, first of all, a lot of people have brought up, well, things were terrible in April. They were terrorism in April. It's just I'm talking about where New York is today. And I look at New York and I do see it as a success story of where we are today in New York. And I believe that they are at a transmission level and a test positivity level where they should absolutely be thinking about opening schools. And people raise the question of, well, wouldn't it be possible that the transmissions might go up again? Absolutely.

[08:10:01] But there's a huge cost to keeping kids at home for the next year, a cost disproportionately borne by poor and minority kids and by women, for whom the labor force aspects are going to be really substantial. So I think we have got to try. I think New York City public cities really ought to try to figure out how to create enough ventilation, enough spacing issues that you can get kids back in safely. If New York can't do it with this level of transmission, I don't think there's hope for any part of the country.

BERMAN: Very quickly, Sanjay, this is a level in New York that can be containment versus mitigation, which is something you've talked about?

GUPTA: I think it's close. I'm curious what Dr. Jha thinks. It's a little bit of a rough definition, but between a one and a million to one and 100,000 new cases per day. So the population of New York is around 20 million, I believe, so for the entire state you'd be talking around 200 cases per day potentially. So they're not there yet, but this is obviously much better. And it does make me worry about where I live, does it mean, Dr. Jha, that schools absolutely should not open in the state of Georgia? It's tough. All these communities are trying to figure it out.

CAMEROTA: Quickly, Dr. Jha.

JHA: Yes, look, there's no magic number, right. And so the question is there's a trade-off here. I think in most places in Georgia it's going to be pretty hard to open schools safely. I think New York should give it a shot.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, gentlemen. Great to talk to you. Thanks for all of the information.

JHA: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, this morning millions of unemployed Americans in limbo as people in Washington try to agree on an economic relief package to help them. The Senate's Democratic whip joins us with the latest on the talks, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:20]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Time may be running out for Congress and the White House to reach a deal on an economic rescue package, just one day to go before lawmakers are supposed to leave for August break.

The two sides are talking we're told but they are reportedly still far apart.

So, let's get the latest from Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. He is the -- excuse me -- Democratic whip. Senator, great to see you this morning.

So --

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL), DEMOCRATIC WHIP: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: -- let's just talk about the time line quickly. What are the chances that this is going to be resolved today or tomorrow and would Congress really leave for August break if it's not?

DURBIN: Well, I think it's unlikely that it will be resolved today. I hope that by tomorrow, something is broken and we have it moving forward.

The honest answer to your basic question, we're not going anywhere until we get an agreement. We sit at our desks, we may be sitting back in our offices in our home states, but we are going to have to come back here. We cannot take four weeks for any purpose away from Washington until this is resolved.

CAMEROTA: Why does this one seem so much harder to reach consensus than the past relief bills? Let me -- before you answer -- tell you that it's Mark Meadows the White House chief of staff who says that it is Senate Democrats who are, you know, muddying up the waters.

So listen to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: If my Democrat colleagues from across the aisle are so concerned about it, I'm not sure why they have been objecting to unanimous consent requests on the Senate floor when we could have extended the enhanced unemployment just with a simple yes, but yet not once but twice, Chuck Schumer has decided to say no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Senator, your response?

DURBIN: Alisyn, let me tell you. There's six chairs at the negotiating table. Mark Meadows is in one, Secretary Mnuchin in another, Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Schumer.

And there are two empty chairs. There's a chair there for Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, who refuses to attend the negotiations, as well as Kevin McCarthy.

So, the Republican leaders of Congress aren't even in the room. What are they doing that's much more important than being in that room to make decisions for 30 million people to receive their unemployment not just for a week at a time, but for the rest of this year or at least until the economy turns around?

And let me get down to the bottom line here. We're not going to open this economy or really open our schools with confidence until we have a dramatic increase in testing. We've got to break the back of this virus once and for all, and we have the money for testing, and in a dramatic fashion, the Republicans have kind of a symbol, let's do a little bit of this, let's do a little bit of that.

This is a major challenge to America. The American people expect us to step up and do something significant to deal with this coronavirus and significant to help the millions of people who are unemployed.

CAMEROTA: President Trump believes if Congress does not reach an agreement, that he can resolve this, excuse me, with an executive order. Should he resort to that and can he?

DURBIN: Well, I don't know. He can try anything he wishes but I doubt that's going to work or very long.

And the bottom line is it's not going to deal with all of the elements that need to be addressed in this relief bill. We need to do something about the hospitals that are hanging on by a thread in rural, small town America, as well as the inner city. We have to do something about making sure that testing, we have investments in testing.

This president -- everyone who crosses his threshold has an instantaneous test. Try to find that across America, very limited. You have to wait five, six, 12 days to get the results of the test, which make it almost worthless at -- the bottom line. We've got to make sure that we make an investment in this.

We should have presidential leadership. Instead of this president, for goodness' sakes, being taken down by Facebook and Twitter for misrepresentations about medical reality, the president of the United States was taken down by those social media. That to me is just incredible.

He's not only dumbed-down the presidency, he's damaged the presidency in ways we never imagine.

CAMEROTA: What do you think about President Trump's idea that he'd like to use the White House as a backdrop to accept the RNC nomination this month?

DURBIN: Not going to change a thing. The American people know that the president is AWOL when it comes to this coronavirus epidemic.

When we get right down to the bottom line here, this president sadly pays no attention to experts, keeps telling us, it's all over, don't worry, it's going to go away, and doesn't do the things he should do as leader. I don't care if he stands in the middle of Times Square or in the White House to make his announcement, he cannot escape that reality.

CAMEROTA: In terms of where you are with the money and the relief, House Democrats want $3.4 trillion. Senate Republicans want $1 trillion. So, where is this going to end?

[08:20:01]

I mean, right now, I know that, you know, you're sort of trying to read the tea leaves. So, where is it going to end up?

DURBIN: I'm not sure. Twenty Republican senators have said they don't want to spend a penny, not one penny at the federal level to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, or to deal with the unemployment issue that's facing this -- or revive this economy. That is an unrealistic view.

So, what we'll do, whatever we do, if Congress is to act, it will be on a bipartisan basis. We believe on the Democratic side that we have to make the investment in America now, absolutely right now, to stop this virus from its spread, to bring down the infection rate and to help businesses and unemployed people get back on their feet.

We believe we need action right now, or sadly, we're going to see this situation get even worse.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about some reporting that our Pentagon reporter Ryan Browne broke this morning, and that is that President Trump has agree today pay the full price of a National Guard's relief help in two states. He wants to pay it in Texas and Florida only.

That's where the National Guard is helping, you know, food banks get food out to, you know, the neediest people who are waiting in line for hours, but he doesn't want to pay the full price in some states where there are Democratic governors.

What do you make of that?

DURBIN: We're seeing this so many times. This president plays favorites when it comes down to basics. When it came down to personal protective equipment, governors were begging for it, the Republican governors were getting specialized treatment.

You know, the same thing is true in many different aspects of this presidency. It really isn't fundamentally fair, but I know why he's doing it. The latest poll shows he's running even with Joe Biden in Texas. That's why he's doing it. I imagine the Florida polls are showing the same thing.

But it's so transparent. The American people understand it.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about the concerns about voting come November. President Trump has planted the seeds of doubt and more than planted the seeds of doubt. He's watering them and cultivating them about mail-in voting. He thinks that it's, you know, rife with possible corruption though he offers no evidence. I know that today is the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.

And so, what do you think is going to happen in November?

DURBIN: Well, I can tell you what's going to happen in November. I think we're going to have an overwhelming turnout. People are going to do what's necessary to have their vote counted. They understand how critically important it is for this country to get back on track.

We are moving in the wrong direction. Overwhelmingly, the American people have a negative view of where we're headed unless we see some change here in Washington. And I think the turnout is going to be substantial. The president can basically say what he wishes about voting by mail which he does himself personally, incidentally.

But the bottom line is, if the Post Office does its job, if we provide some help from Washington to the election officials to pay for postage and the like, we can have an election that really represents the feelings across this country. That to me is the bottom line.

The president can try to talk down the results or say he's going to reject the results. The American people have the last word on November 3rd.

CAMEROTA: Is the Post Office doing its job?

DURBIN: Not enough. I can tell you, the meeting yesterday was a very hot meeting with the leaders of Congress, with the postmaster general, a contributor to Donald Trump who now has taken over the Postal Service.

We've got to get the Postal Service up to the standard where they can do their job and do it effectively.

I'm proud of our postal workers across America. But they got their hand tied behind their back with this leadership.

CAMEROTA: Senator Dick Durbin, thank you very much. We really appreciate you giving us a status report and sharing all this information with us this morning.

DURBIN: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Republican congressman says he's now tested positive for coronavirus. He tells us how he is doing, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:46]

CAMEROTA: New this morning, a member of Congress in isolation after testing positive for coronavirus, another member. This is Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois. This comes after Representatives Grijalva and Louie Gohmert tested positive just last week.

Joining us now is Congressman Rodney Davis, a Republican from Illinois.

Congressman Davis, look, thank you very much for being with us this morning. Your dog is right behind you, I think soiling your lawn.

How are you feeling this morning, Congressman?

REP. RODNEY DAVIS (R-IL): You know, I feel great. I'll be honest with you. I -- I take my temp every night and every morning, I had -- I usually have a temperature around 97 with thermometer I use. Yesterday, it was 99.

Because I had a bunch of public events planned over the next couple of days, I went ahead and went up to the rapid scan testing facility we have in our district, got tested and surprisingly, I tested positive.

To be honest with you, if I wouldn't have tested yesterday morning -- I came home last -- I was home all day yesterday and tested again last night with thermometer and it was 98 degrees. I never would have gone in without that test yesterday morning.

So, I'm glad it happened, glad I did, so I can keep people safe.

BERMAN: Yeah, I mean, that's exactly the thing. You are keeping people safe. Your vigilance keep people safe, and only a temperature of 99 sent you to get to the test.

But you are extra-vigilant, correct, because your wife is a nurse and a cancer survivor?

DAVIS: You know, I do my best, like everybody does, to be vigilant. Obviously, we're never perfect. But in the end, I found that a protocol of taking my temperature with the same thermometer so that you can identify when there are spikes or decreases has really helped.

It helped me know that, you know, my temp was 99, which was higher than normal for me on that specific thermometer. And that allowed me to be able to go in. Even though at a 99-degree temp, I would have been let in at any government building and medical facility with no question.

BERMAN: Do you know where you got it?

DAVIS: No, I don't.

You know, I talked with my local -- my personal doctor here at home, I talked to the attending physician at the house, the attending physician seems to think it would have been in the last 48 hours before my diagnosis. So I was doing open office hours with constituents in different communities throughout my district, taking what I thought were all of the safety precautions during those days and obviously, I didn't do enough. I picked it up somewhere.

BERMAN: Well, look, you can do all the right things and still get --

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