Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Biden & Harris Vow to Lead U.S. Out of Pandemic; Trump Administration Releases Vague Safety Tips for Schools; Details Emerge on Bob Woodward's New Trump Book, 'Rage'; U.S. Marks Deadliest Day of Summer in Pandemic. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 13, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris making their debut as the Democratic ticket.

[05:59:36]

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I have no doubt that I picked the right person to join me as the next vice president of the United States of America.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's all on the line. America is crying out for leadership.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With classes set to begin imminently in districts across the country, school board meetings have become increasingly contentious.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The road to reopening sports, schools, and the economy relies on dramatically reducing rates of infection in the community.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the war that we're in against COVID, wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands, and be smart about crowds.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Thursday, August 13, 6 a.m. here in New York. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill back here again this morning.

Good morning to you, friend.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking this morning, the deadliest day of the entire summer. More new reported deaths from coronavirus than we have seen since may. Just under 1,500 deaths; 1,500. That is double the death rate from early June. We had 56,000 new cases. Again, that's a bad number, especially bad

because until now, the last few days and weeks, we've seen a decline in the number of new cases, so that 56,000 jumps out. We'll have to see if that trend continues.

The CDC director warned in a new interview that if Americans don't adhere to public health measures, the U.S. could see, quote, "the worst fall in history."

Overnight, the White House issued vague new safety tips for schools but still not requiring masks. By our count, more than 2,000 students and teachers are now quarantined across the country after returning to reopened schools.

HILL: The newly-minted Democratic ticket vowing to lead Americans out of this pandemic, making the case for President Trump's failed leadership and offering a sharply different view for the country's future.

Mr. Trump and Republicans launching a grab bag of tacks -- of attacks on Kamala Harris. The race for the White House now in full swing.

Also ahead this morning, exclusive details on Bob Woodward's new book about President Trump. It's titled "Rage." Those details include what we know about the, quote, "love letters" exchanged between the president and Kim Jong-un.

We begin our coverage this morning with CNN's Arlette Saenz, who is live in Wilmington, Delaware. Arlette, good morning.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

Well, this was a vice-presidential announcement like no other. There was no rally, with thousands of supporters or applause. It was basically the candidates, a handful of staff and Secret Service, and a group of reporters.

But that didn't stop Joe Biden and Kamala Harris from calling out President Trump and making the argument that a vote for the Democratic ticket would restore leadership that they believe is missing in this current White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAENZ (voice-over): Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, making their debut as running mates, immediately taking aim at President Trump and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

HARRIS: But there's a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It's because of Trump's failure to take it seriously from the start. This is what happens when we elect a guy who just isn't up for the job. Our country ends up in tatters.

SAENZ: Once fierce rivals on the debate stage, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Biden and Harris are now working together towards one common goal: defeating President Trump in November. HARRIS: America is crying out for leadership. Yet, we have a president

who cares more about himself than the people who elected him.

SAENZ: From the White House, the president wasting no time launching his own attack.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I watched her poll numbers go, boom, boom, boom, down to almost nothing. And she left angry; she left mad. There was nobody more insulting to Biden than she was. She said horrible things about him.

SAENZ: Earlier, Biden already defending his vice-presidential pick from Trump's insults.

BIDEN: Donald Trump has already started his attacks, calling Kamala, quote, "nasty." Is anyone surprised Donald Trump has a problem with a strong woman?

SAENZ: The duo giving voters their first glance of the newly-announced ticket.

BIDEN: Kamala, as you all know, is smart, she's tough, she's experienced. She's a proven fighter for the backbone of this country.

SAENZ: Biden also noting the importance of standing beside the first woman of color vice-presidential nominee.

BIDEN: All across the nation, little girls woke up, especially little black and brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities, but today, today, just maybe, they're seeing themselves for the first time in a new way, as the stuff of president and vice presidents.

SAENZ: Before leaving the socially-distanced event, Harris sending this message to the young girls of color watching her make history.

HARRIS: Believe in the future of our country and this next president of the United States. Anything is possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:05:05]

SAENZ: Now, Biden announced they raised $26 million in the first 24 hours after Harris joined him as his running mate.

Today, we will see Biden and Harris together, attending a briefing on COVID-19 from public health experts, which comes one day after the deadliest day of the summer.

I actually also asked Biden whether we will see the two of them campaigning in person together on the campaign trail. He told me that they will, if the science allows it -- Erica.

HILL: Pointing to the science. Arlette, thank you. Meantime, President Trump is now touting the administration's new

safety tips for schools. Those tips do not require masks. They are vague, to put it mildly. This morning, the Florida Education Association's lawsuit to stop what it calls the governor's reckless mandate to reopen schools heads to court.

CNN's Rosa Flores is live in Miami this morning with more. Rosa, good morning.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Erica, good morning.

The White House issuing recommendations for the reopening of schools. The problem is, is that these recommendations are very vague.

For example, it says that students and staff should understand the symptoms of COVID-19. It encourages social distancing, and it encourages the use of masks, but it does not require them.

Now, President Donald Trump praising Florida yesterday for its reopening of schools. Here in this state, just this week, 13 school districts reopened for in-person instruction.

Now, one of those school districts is Martin County, and one day after this school district reopened, one classroom and one bus route has been placed under quarantine -- This is according to a spokesperson from that school district -- after a student displayed symptoms of COVID-19.

Now, Gov. Ron DeSantis had a live address yesterday on the reopening of schools, and he mentioned Martin County, but it's unclear exactly what he meant. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Martin County Superintendent Laurie Gaylord told me today that she viewed reopening her schools as a mission akin to a Navy SEAL operation. Just as the SEALs surmounted obstacles to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, so, too, would the Martin County School System find a way to provide parents with a meaningful choice of in-person instruction or continued distance learning, all-in, all the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, the legal battle over the reopening of schools continues here in the state of Florida, between the teachers' union and Gov. Ron DeSantis. There's actually a status hearing today in Tallahassee later this morning.

This as the state of Florida sees a spike in the number of cases yesterday. The Florida Department of Health reporting more than 8,000 cases. Well, Gov. Ron DeSantis blames a data dump from a lab here in Miami where I am for the spike.

But look, you've got to look at these number of cases per day in the state of Florida. And if you do so, they have been going down. But John, you also have to look at the positivity rate, because if you do, you'll see that it's been between 12 and 16 percent in the past two weeks. And that is very telling -- John.

BERMAN: Yes, the positivity rate in Florida is high. The positivity rate in Texas is very high, rising in some cases. And we saw the largest single death toll for a day this summer, Rosa. We're going to talk much more about why, why now are we seeing this many deaths. Dr. Peter Hotez joins us in just a moment.

Rosa Flores, thank you so much for your reporting.

All right. We have a CNN exclusive this morning. We're learning now the first details about Bob Woodward's new book on the president, entitled "Rage." The legendary Watergate journalist sat down with the president for more than a dozen interviews, despite the president harshly criticizing Woodward's last book.

CNN's Joe Johns live at the White House for us this morning with the exclusive details.

Look, whenever Bob Woodward comes out with a book, it always is news making. And this is the first glimpse as to what's inside of this, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, John. And this reporting comes from a colleague here at CNN, Jamie Gangel.

Now, this is being described as an explosive look at the president's views, as well as his actions, on everything from the coronavirus pandemic to the collapse of the economy to the racial unrest in the United States, as well as national security.

You also mentioned that Woodward apparently got 12 interviews with the president of the United States.

Woodward is known to record his interviews, so in a normal, fact-based environment, that would make it very difficult for a president to deny the things he has said on the record.

Among the things he got access to, e-mails. He got access to personal letters, diaries, calendars, including the personal letters between the president of the United States and North Korean leader Kim Jong- un. Those have sometimes been described as love letters. Kim describes the bond between the two leaders as something out of a fantasy film.

[06:10:12]

Simon and Schuster, the publisher of this book, calls it volatile and vivid, a look at the turmoil and the contradictions of the Trump presidency.

This book is expected to be out before election day, possibly the middle of September. So we'll all be looking to see what it is the president said to Bob Woodward. As some of us know, the last book Woodward wrote on the president, the

president claimed he didn't even get the interview request from Bob Woodward. Apparently not this time.

BERMAN: Look --

JOHNS: John, back to you.

BERMAN: I would imagine we're going to see more details leak out over the next few weeks, Joe, that will be news-making in and of themselves. Thanks so much for delivering that this morning. Appreciate it.

As we noted, the U.S. marked the deadliest day of the summer in the coronavirus pandemic, nearly 1,500 new deaths. Why? More than 55,000 new cases. Why? What does that tell us about where we are? Where are we headed? Have we leveled off or not? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:16]

HILL: Breaking overnight, the United States reporting its highest daily death toll from coronavirus since mid-May, nearly 1,500 people. All of this come as President Trump is touting vague new safety tips for schools and continuing his push for in-school learning.

Joining us now is Dr. Peter Hotez. He's the dean of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He's also co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.

Dr. Hotez, I want to start in your state there in Texas, because there's numbers coming out that really leave you scratching your head, and frankly, have us all wondering this morning about the data itself.

So we're seeing a pretty significant drop in the number of tests in Texas, but the positivity rate, we see the new tests there. The positivity rate is skyrocketing: 24.5 percent yesterday. It was 24 percent, almost, on Tuesday. Nearly 21 percent on Monday.

And hospitalizations, we need to look at, too. We've always talked about the focus on positivity and hospitalizations, as opposed to just the number of tests. But it doesn't seem to be adding up the way it used to.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, that's right. There is a little bit of confusion. The positivity rate is alarmingly high, and the number of tests have dropped off.

One possibility is that it's because we're testing more -- we're focusing testing more on symptomatic individuals, which may -- which may help promote that. So we don't really quite understand what's going on at this point. I've been getting calls from a number of journalists. There seem to be some inconsistencies. But the bottom line hasn't really changed. The bottom line is there's

still a very aggressive COVID epidemic in Texas. And even though, overall, the number of cases has plateaued, it's plateaued at a thousand miles an hour, meaning we're seeing, for instance, in Houston, well over a thousand confirmed cases a day, which we know probably means between 5,000 and 10,000 cases a day.

And it still means that we can't have anything resembling a normal life in Houston and many other Texas metro areas or even in south Texas, where it's especially bad. And it means we can't open schools and do all the things we want to do, until we can fix this.

BERMAN: Yes. The data is a mess right now. And the testing -- the fact that the testing has dropped that much, when the level of new cases, we know, is where it is, it's not supposed to be that way. You're supposed to test more to try to control the outbreak, if you can. And clearly, we're not able to do that right now.

And I'm struck by daily death numbers nationally, Dr. Hotez. We're back up to nearly 1,500. I know death is a lagging indicator, but when we're seeing the case rate plateau, as you said, at nearly 1,000 miles per hour, one has to assume we're going to see, perhaps, a death toll like this for some time to come. Every day.

HOTEZ: Yes, that's right. And remember, John, this is a -- this is not really new. It's part of a consistent trend. If you remember, we were talking in late June, early July how the number of cases was going up, and the president is saying, Yes, but look at the deaths. There's no deaths. It's all due to testing.

And then the next week it went from 500 to 600 deaths per day, then it went to 800, 900 deaths per day, then 1,000 deaths per day the week after that, then 1,100 the week after that and 1,200 the week after that. What do they think is going to happen?

So yes, now we're at the highest daily death toll. And pretty soon, either by the end of this week or the beginning of next week, we're going to reach 170,000 deaths. And this is the way it's been for most of the summer, that every week, we have another 10,000 deaths.

And -- and there's still no interest or ability to want to create that national program that we've been talking about that we can make a huge difference in the lives of Americans if we just had that national strategy to bring every state down to containment mode; and we could do this by October. We can still do it, but we won't.

HILL: I love that you're still optimistic and holding out for that October 1 deadline, the October 1 date, rather, that you've talked so much about it.

But to your point about there being a lack of strategy. I mean, we look at these guidelines from the White House that were put out overnight. To call them vague is almost an understatement. Saying that people in schools should be able to recognize the symptoms, but not really laying out what the symptoms are. There's no mask mandate there. You should, you know, try to minimize the indoor gatherings. Open the windows.

When you see this as the president continues to push for kids to go back to school, as CNN has counted a couple thousand teachers, students, and staff that are now quarantined across the country for schools that have opened for in-person learning, you know, I just wonder your reaction to this being the guidance that we are getting from the top.

[06:20:00]

HOTEZ: Well, the -- the incredible thing is, they forgot the most important guideline of all, which is you have to bring down community transmission if you want to safely open schools.

There's just no way right now, where this epidemic is raging across the south, in Florida and Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and in much of Texas, that you can open up schools safely. They will not own the most important piece that has to be done. And this is what they're doing.

They're basically implying or even explicitly stating that it's the teachers' fault, that it's the principal's fault, that it's the school superintendent's fault. They have to fix this, when they will not take ownership and do the single most important thing we can do to keep our schools safe, which is bring down community transmission. It is beyond infuriating.

And here we are, our greatest national treasure, our schoolteachers, and we're setting them up to fail. It's -- it makes me beyond mad.

BERMAN: I imagine that the CDC director, Robert Redfield, is going to be in some trouble today. Why? Because he has once again painted a dire picture of what could happen in the fall. I want you to listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: I'm asking you to do four simple things. Wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands, and be smart about crowds. If we don't do that, as I said last April, this could be the worst fall from a public health perspective we've ever had.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The worst fall from a public health perspective that we've ever had. And he calls on individuals to make it better.

And yes, we all have personal responsibility, Dr. Hotez. But on the other hand, if you're looking around the country right now, if you're at home looking around the country or even looking around your county or state, you see my school's open, but the one down the street is a hybrid model. The one across the state border is closed. The state football conference that plays in my state, that's open for games, but the one in the state next door is closed.

We're all over the place. We're all over the place. So what are you supposed to take away from that if you're sitting at home?

HOTEZ: Yes, I mean, this is -- this finger pointing, saying it's the individual's fault. I mean, it's like a parody of an Ayn Rand book. I mean, that this is not the way it has to be.

If we had that federal strategy, that guidance, that leadership, we could completely fix this. But doing what we're doing, first dumping it on the states, then the states dumping it on the teachers, and now the individuals, it's clear -- it has clearly failed.

And the evidence where it's failed is we've got 5 million cases of coronavirus, the worst in the world, and we have 170,000 deaths, the worst in the world. At what point do you wake up and say, Hey, maybe we should try something different? And they just won't do that.

BERMAN: Dr. Peter Hotez, thank for being with us this morning, trying to understand the very confusing numbers we're seeing, especially from your home state. So thanks for being with us.

HOTEZ: Thank you.

BERMAN: Erica.

HILL: President Trump's handling of the pandemic is a major focus now of the 2020 race. What the Democratic ticket is offering as a way out of this crisis, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:27:16]

HARRIS: He inherited the longest economic expansion in history, from Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Senator Kamala Harris in her first appearance as Joe Biden's running mate, putting the president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis at the center of the 2020 race.

Joining us now, CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers, and CNN political analyst April Ryan. She's a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks.

And Bakari, there was a lot going on in this event with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden yesterday. The first time we've seen them together as running mates, the first event like this during a pandemic. There was a lot to see, but it was interesting to me how they both, in their own ways, tried to say, no matter what you're seeing here and all the firsts you're seeing here, this election is about a pandemic. A pandemic that is killing Americans and affecting you. What do you think about that?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. And what we saw was that this is going to be a referendum on the way that Donald Trump has been handling and reacting to COVID-19.

When you think about this, you have -- you have over 100,000 Americans who died, many of which are black and brown. You have tens of millions of Americans that are unemployed. You have an unemployment rate that's skyrocketing.

And you have people -- I mean, I'm from Denmark, South Carolina. I'm a big Gamecock football fan. Throughout -- throughout the country, people can't even prepare to go see college football this year because of the ineptitude of Donald Trump.

And so while, yes, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden represent the future of this great country, they also want to remind you very tangibly that this president has failed us on all fronts, by simply not taking this virus seriously, first. And second, just pure incompetence.

BERMAN: April, the president said he didn't really see much of it, and so when a reporter basically summed up for him what Kamala Harris had said about the case that she laid out for his lack of leadership, he didn't even really respond to that. Instead, he just pulled that "nasty" word out of the bag, which he uses with women on a regular basis, specifically any women who he feels do not respect him in the way that he believes he deserves.

It's interesting that that's all he's coming with, right? He's just going back to the "nasty women," and oh, by the way, I need a white suburban housewife, which is also not really adding up. And that's where we're at.

APRIL RYAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Personal attacks and race are what this president always falls back on.

At the end of the day, this president is limited. They are doing their opposition research on Senator Harris right now, now the running mate to Joe Biden on this Democratic ticket.

But once again, as you said, Erica, this president likes to go to the issue of "nasty." He called me nasty. Strong, black women. Let's go there.

END