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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Joe Biden & Kamala Harris Speak Out As A Ticket Later Today; Russia & the Vaccine Race; Big Ten and PAC-12 Conference Postpone All Fall Sports. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired August 12, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:20]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, their first appearance together as running mates is just hours from now.
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: The race for a vaccine is on. Russia's phase three trial starts today. Why is Putin already claiming victory?
Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.
ROMANS: Good morning, Laura.
I'm Christine Romans. It's Wednesday, August 12th. It is 5:00 a.m. in New York. And it's 83 days until the election.
In just hours, we will hear for the first time from Joe Biden and his newly picked running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris. The 55- year-old former state attorney general competed against Biden for the Democratic nomination dropping out last December.
In an email yesterday afternoon, Biden called Harris the best person to help me take this fight to Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation.
He told supporters: I first met Kamala through my son Beau. They were both attorney generals at the same time. He had enormous respect for her and her work. I thought a lot about that as I made that decision. There's no one's opinion I valued more than Beau's. And I'm proud to have Kamala standing with me on this.
CNN's Arlette Saenz has more from Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Laura.
Well, the Democratic ticket is set as Joe Biden selected California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Biden informed Harris of his decision over a zoom call from his Delaware home on Tuesday.
Now, Biden and Harris had faced off against each other in the Democratic presidential primary, including that heated debate moment over school busing. But ultimately, Biden said he doesn't hold grudges and decided to go with an experienced campaigner as his partner on the Democratic ticket. Now, Harris is one of only three women to make it to the vice presidential slot for a major party, following Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and Sarah Palin back in 2008.
But she's also making history of her own as first women of color to be vice presidential nominee for a major party. Harris is the daughter of immigrants, her mother from India, her father from Jamaica. So, this is quite the historic ticket as Biden had faced some pressure to select a woman of color as his running mate.
Now, Biden and Harris will appear together for the first time as the Democratic ticket here in Wilmington, Delaware. They are delivering remarks later in the day on Wednesday, and following that, they will hold a grassroots virtual fundraiser with their supporters as they are trying to energize Democrats and supporters heading in to the November election -- Laura and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: Arlette, thank you so much for that.
It didn't take long for President Trump to offer his assessment of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden's running mate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a little surprised that he picked her. I've been watching her for a longtime and I was a little surprised. She was extraordinarily nasty to Kavanaugh and I won't forget that. So, she did very poorly in the primaries and now she's chosen. Let's see how that all works out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: The president also described Senator Harris as the meanest and, quote, most horrible person but struggled to come up with a more consistent or coherent line of attack against her.
More now from CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Laura and Christine.
It wasn't long after Joe Biden had announced his pick that the president came out to the briefing room yesterday and of asked what he thought about him picking Senator Kamala Harris as his vice president. The president seemed to do something that often he did not do in 2016, which is he struggled to land any kind of line of attack against Senator Harris. He talked about her record on fracking. He mentioned how she grilled Justice Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing. He said, he believed she was, quote, disrespectful to Joe Biden that time, of course, when they got into that heated dispute on the debate stage.
So, other than that, the president really did not have one line of attack against Senator Harris and appeared to be reading off his bullet point list while he was sitting there in the briefing room and instead, you know, later asked on other questions on other topics circled back to Harris, naming off just multiple things.
And, really, this is what we're been hearing -- what we've been hearing from campaign advisors that actually the president said she was his, quote, number one draft pick. She actually is the one they wanted the least out of several of the candidate that Joe Biden was interviewing because they are not sure how to attack her. You can see that in the first statement they put out yesterday where they were saying, essentially portraying her as this overzealous prosecutor back in -- during her days as a prosecutor, but now also arguing she's anti-police and trying to make this argument that they tried to make with Joe Biden.
So, where that ends up it is still to be determined. But right off the bat, they did not have a successful line of attack against Kamala Harris.
[05:05:02]
And, of course, one of the biggest sticking points of that is that Donald Trump has donated to her campaigns in the past, so as Ivanka Trump, so has the treasury secretary. And that's a question at the briefing yesterday, we tried to ask the president but he did not answer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Kaitlan, thank you so much for that.
CNN special live coverage of the 2020 Democratic National Convention next week. We'll have all the biggest moments, the most important speeches and insight on what it all means for Joe Biden and the future of the Democratic Party. Watch starting Monday night at 8:00 Eastern.
JARRETT: We turn to our other big story this morning, the coronavirus. Florida and Georgia reporting their highest single day death tolls since the pandemic started. More than 1,300 Americans died on Tuesday and scientists are seeing some disturbing new trends.
We get more now from CNN's Athena Jones.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Laura.
New startling statistics about COVID-19 among children and the elderly. COVID cases among children jumped 90 percent over the last four weeks according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children's Hospital Association, soaring 137 percent in the state of Florida alone. The Florida Department of Health says the total number of children
hospitalized due to COVID has more than doubled. The new data on COVID in children adding to concerns surrounding COVID cases as schools in Mississippi, Georgia and Indiana, as COVID deaths among children are fast approaching the yearly death toll from the flu.
Dr. Anthony Fauci pushing for the kind of simple but effective measures some state and local leaders continue to resist.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I feel that universal wearing of masks is one of five or six things that are very important in preventing the upsurge of infection and in turning around the infections that we are seeing surging.
JONES: That upsurge in cases being led by the South while new cases are growing fastest in Hawaii. And even as new cases are holding steady in most states, deaths nationwide average 1,000 a day for the past four weeks now.
Meanwhile, a new report by the American Healthcare Association and the National Center for Assisted Living says community spread is to blame for an alarming spike in nursing homes. A 58 percent jump from mid- June to mid-July -- Christine, Laura.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Athena, thank you so much for that.
OK. With no stimulus deal on Capitol Hill there are big questions about President Trump's end run around Congress on unemployment benefits. On Tuesday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow affirmed the administration has backed off the $100 weekly state unemployment contribution required in the president's executive order. Instead, states can count their existing benefits in a match envisioned by the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KUDLOW, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER: Any state who has already been given at least 100 bucks in benefits now qualifies. OK. They don't have to engaging cost shares. If they choose to they can add. So we will put in to all those states who qualify which I think will be 50 states $300 of federal benefits. So, that equals $700 per person, per week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Three hundred dollars. Kudlow calls that $300 a good, generous compromise.
But be clear here, $300 is less than Democrats proposed in their stimulus package and less than the enhanced benefits that people had for four months. It is half of what people had over those four months.
Second round of stimulus checks won't be coming any time soon even with bipartisan support for direct payments. These negotiations have stalled. It's not clear what the payments would look like. The Republicans proposed to keep the parameters largely the same as the first-round ever checks to Americans. Democrats want to send out, Laura. bigger checks.
Bottom line here, we're heading into the second week where this important aid this shock absorber for people who have been thrown out of work over the sum certificate gone and with the White House proposing here is half of what people had before.
JARRETT: And people just want to know, when is their money coming?
ROMANS: Exactly.
JARRETT: Put aside all of this jumble rhetoric.
All right. President Trump and President Putin both in the race for a coronavirus vaccine. But the Russian leader is taking the bigger risk. We have the latest, next.
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[05:13:33]
JARRETT: The Trump administration has reached a deal with the biotech firm Moderna to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of the company's coronavirus vaccine if and when it's approved. The deal could be worth as much as $1.5 billion. Moderna is one of several companies manufacturing a vaccine at risk, which means the vaccine is being produced before it is approved. Clinical trials are currently under way to test whether it is safe and effective.
ROMANS: Russia plans to begin mass coronavirus vaccinations for its citizens in October. Despite serious questions about the safety and efficacy of its newly approved vaccine, several U.S. health leaders and vaccine experts are skeptical since no data has been released and phase three trials are starting only today.
Matthew Chance joins us live from Moscow.
And, Matthew, you know, vaccines are a very slow and steady wins the race business, but Russia is trying to say we're out there first.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, they passed a law a couple of months ago at the start of this global pandemic, removing the need for phase three testing to be completed before approval for public use of the vaccine to try to fast track that. That's what they've done.
There are big concerns about the lack of data that's been published. There hasn't been any. About the lack of test, phase three trials have only just begun. Russians, though, say that front line health workers in this country, teachers, elderly, other vulnerable categories will be the first to be vaccinated when they get this thing mass-produced and despite those broad concerns and skepticism about this being expressed around the world Russians are taking a very different point of view saying that this is an important victory in the battle against coronavirus.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHANCE (voice-over): You couldn't accuse the Kremlin of ignoring the propaganda value of its vaccine. They have even called it Sputnik after the Soviet satellite that launched the space race. Now, it's the vaccine race the Kremlin says it's won hands down.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): A vaccine against coronavirus has been registered for the first time in the world this morning. I know that it works quite effectively. It forms a stable immunity.
CHANCE: But how does he know? Well, he says one of his own daughters, perhaps the one who is an acrobatic dancer has been vaccinated or his eldest, a medical specialist, or Putin says she had a slight temperature at first but feels much better now. Extraordinary from a Russian president who rarely mentions his family, we still don't know for sure how many children he has.
Still, it under lines how much confidence the Kremlin wants to show in its new vaccine. Despite concerns no clinical data has been published, soldiers were used as volunteers in early testing and crucial third phase human trials and not even started, worrying shortcuts, say critics. The Kremlin dashed across the line.
ALEX AZER, SECRETARY OF HEALTH: The point is not to be first with the vaccine. The point is to have a vaccine that is safe and effective for the American people and people of the world.
CHANCE: There's been criticism inside Russia, too, a prominent pharmaceutical industry body this week calling on health officials to postpone the vaccine because it may put lives at risk. Not a warning that's been heeded. Officials say front line health workers and teachers will be vaccinated first, then the elderly and other vulnerable groups.
In fact, Russian officials say there is a vast global appetite for their vaccine. Applications for more than a billion doses they say have already been received from more than 20 countries.
It may not be safe or even work, but Russia can proclaim at least to itself that it is once again at planet-saving scientific super power.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHANCE: Christine, it really does have echoes, doesn't it, of the space race during the cold war. Again, to reaffirm what you just mentioned mass vaccinations in this country is going to start in October as they start to mass produce the doses of this vaccine that they've now approved.
But, again this, is extraordinary. Those crucial phase three trials that are normally seen as being absolutely necessary before any vaccine is approved they've already started this morning. ROMANS: So clear also you have to have the public believe in the
safety of a vaccine when it is ready as well. So rushing it, I don't know what it does to public uptake of vaccines around the world but critically important they get it right.
All right. Thank you so much, Matthew Chance. Nice to see you.
JARRETT: All right. Among the U.S. health officials expressing skepticism of the new Russian vaccine is Dr. Anthony Fauci. The federal government's top COVID expert telling ABC News if the U.S. was willing to, in his word, take the chance of hurting a lot of people or giving them something that doesn't work, it could roll out a vaccine next week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: Having a vaccine, Deborah, and proving that a vaccine is safe and effective are two different things. I hope that the Russians have actually definitively proven that the vaccine is safe and effective. I seriously doubt that they've done that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: All right. Russia's claim of having developed a coronavirus vaccine creating new concerns among medical experts in this country. Some were already nervous the Trump administration would rush trials in hopes of unveiling a potentially untested vaccine right before election. Now those worries have intensified.
CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine, Laura, President Trump has said he thinks we can have a vaccine ready to go by Election Day. And that is brewing more fears that we could have an October surprise. In other words, that President Trump could pressure the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve a vaccine to go on the market in October even if it hasn't been thoroughly tested in phase three trials.
But Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, says, quote, this cannot happen. He says we can only have a vaccine when we're finished with phase three trials and we know that the vaccine is safe and that it also it's effective.
[05:20:01]
These trials involve 30,000 people. Now other experts tell us that there's no way those trials can to be done and ready to go by Election Day.
Now this concern about the so-called October surprise is based on large part with what President Trump did last spring with hydroxychloroquine. President Trump pressured the FDA to give it an emergency use authorization, even though there was no data showing that it worked. So the FDA did give it authorization and then they had to take it away a couple of months later.
So the concern here is that the president might do the same thing with the vaccine -- Laura, Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: All right. Elizabeth, thank you for that.
Will we see college football in the fall? In the spring or not at all?
"Bleacher Report" coming up next.
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[05:25:13]
ROMANS: So, will we have college football this fall? Two of the biggest conferences postponing all fall sports.
Andy Scholes has more on this morning's "Bleacher Report".
Hey, Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, good morning, Christine.
It's going to look very different, the Big Ten and PAC-12, both postponing their college football seasons due to coronavirus concerns. Both conferences say they do hope to play football in the spring. Now, the PAC-12 voted unanimously to postpone all sports, including basketball through the end of the year. Commissioner Larry Scott says if conditions improve the league would consider a return to competition after January 1st.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COMMISSIONER LARRY SCOTT, PAC-12: We cannot bubble our student athletes like pro sports can, part of a broader campus communities, student athletes are living with peer students on campus, interacting. The health, safety and wellbeing of our student athletes and all those connected to PAC-12 sports have been from day one our top priority and it was the top priority today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Now, just last week, Big Ten released a tentative schedule for a ten game football season, but after pulling the plug on fall sports yesterday, Commissioner Kevin Warren said there's still too much unknown about the virus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN WARREN, BIG TEN COMMISSIONER: As things begin to evolve you look at the number of cases that are spiking, the number of deaths not only in our country, in our states where many of our cools are located, but worldwide, when you look at this decision, it just, we just believe collectively there's too much uncertainty at this point in time, in our country, and to really, to encourage our student athletes to participate in fall sports.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Now not all schools are happy with the decision. Nebraska head coach Scott Frost said on Monday the Huskers would play football even if the Big Ten voted not to. The school releasing a statement after the decision saying we're very disappointed in the decision by the Big Ten conference to post phone fall football season as we have been and continue to be ready to play. We hope it may be possible for our student athletes to have the opportunity to compete.
Now even though the Big Ten and PAC-12 are cancelling the season there still will be football. The SEC and ACC say they are moving ahead as scheduled for football this fall. According to the ESPN, Yahoo Sports, the big draw conference plans to play as well. President Trump believes that's the right decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We want to get football in colleges. These are young, strong people. They won't have a big problem with the China virus. So we want to see college football start.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Yeah, so, Laura, we should have at least for now college football games a month from now. And what's very interesting is on one side, you have the Big Ten and Pac-12 saying that their medical experts say it's not safe to play football right now. And the other side you have the SEC and ACC doctors telling them they can move ahead as planned.
How doctors come to two different decisions like that, I don't know.
JARRETT: Well, there's so much we don't know how the virus affects even young healthy people. So, we will wait to see what happens to that.
Andy, good to see you as always. Thanks so much.
SCHOLES: All right. Today will mark a first for a presidential ticket that's already making history. The latest on the brand-new running mate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris next.
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