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Democrats Officially Nominate Joe Biden for President; New Zealand Scrambles to Contain Virus Cluster; Mexico Reports 5,500 New Cases Despite Downward Trend. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 19, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So an unprecedented moment in the Democratic National Convention. The roll call from all 57 states and territories, we saw people from each state and territory in their homes, nominating for president.

The man who did it for Indiana, there he is. Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, also a former Democratic presidential candidate, and he joins us now. Mayor, always a pleasure to have you on. Thanks so much for being with us. You did not have calamari last night, which I know must have been disappointing for you. But why was that roll call important? What message did that send?

PETE BUTTIGIEG, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I thought it was a remarkable moment. You know, usually, you're going around this big convention hall and everybody is, you know, each one of the 57 delegations trying to do or say something that's a little bit distinctive. Here, you've got to see it with your own eyes.

You've got to see this country and an entire country of states and territories not ready to nominate Joe Biden. We chose our spot as a place that really helps tell South Bend's story. It's a tech center that used to be an empty auto factory. And you saw all of these different people, Democrats from around the country, sharing, you know, why their region would benefit from a Biden-Harris administration, but you're right, nobody could outdo the calamari, that definitely stole the show --

BERMAN: Yes, and a good location, no snacks. Next time, you may want to work on that.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, no kidding.

BERMAN: You talk about the diversity. One of the things that was striking to me was the normalization, in a way, of the diversity. And this wasn't as part of the roll call, but this was part of the keynote address, which was different in and of itself, as well. We heard from Pennsylvania State rep Malcolm Kenyatta and his husband. So let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. MALCOLM KENYATTA (D-PA): When I wanted to marry the man I loved,

Joe Biden was the first national figure to support me and my family.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Appreciate you, man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I appreciate you, man. It was that second part there that I think struck a lot of people. Again, the normalization of it, what was that like for you as the first openly gay candidate to ever receive delegates for a major party?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think it brings out that for us, this is our normal. This is America. America is a diverse country. And to see representative Kenyatta who's a friend, he's actually a candidate we're backing with our PAC when the era -- so happy for him and Matt. And each of the people in that keynote address, you know, you could see a party that reflects this country.

I remember feeling that way in Philadelphia. I was at that convention four years ago looking around me and seeing people of every background, of every sexual orientation and gender identity and disability, and just thinking, this looks so much more like America than the other convention.

But this was a whole new chance to bring that forward. And it's one of many things, I think, that really points to the fact that across the racial diversity of this country, even across the ideological diversity of this country, if you think about both progressives and some Republicans, all coming together to say we've got to elect Joe Biden, you can see that the center of gravity of the American people right now is squarely within the Democratic coalition.

BERMAN: How do you explain -- and this is one of the lingering ironies or phenomenon I think of the Democratic race this time, that your party has chosen a man to lead them to the future, who is in his late 70s, and is in so many ways tied to the past, and unapologetically tied to the past too. I mean, we heard from the McCains, we heard from people who have known Joe Biden for decades and decades. So how do you explain to the American people that this is the vessel for the future?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think that, you know, and I say this as somebody who comes from a newer generation. Generational change is about a relationship between generations. And again, you can see it in the convention itself. All of the different voices and so many newer, younger voices who have been elevated and amplified. And I think that's something that Joe Biden is very intentional about. He often speaks in public about his entire to be a transformational president and build that bridge.

[07:35:00]

What you see in the convention I think is going to reflect what you will see in a Biden-Harris administration. A presidency that really is about the future, and if you think about the issues at stake, you know, whether it's climate, racial and economic justice, just having an economy for a newer generation to live in a little actually make it possible for them to succeed. You can tell that the things that Joe Biden's intent on doing are the things that are going to matter to future generations.

BERMAN: I wasn't going to ask you this, but you used the phrase Biden-Harris administration, so it begs the question, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask. You said you would be honored to serve in a Biden-Harris administration. You haven't said what job you wanted. I can understand that, it is presumptuous in its own way. But what's your skill-set, what's your skill-set? What do you think it lends itself to?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I'm not focused on my skill-set right now, other than how I can use that and the network of supporters that we built up during my campaign to do everything in my power to make sure that there actually is a Biden-Harris administration.

Look, we're winning right now, and we're winning big. But you know, if the last few months have taught us anything, it's how much can change in a few months. So this is a time for being laser-focused on making sure November goes well.

BERMAN: OK, two questions --

BUTTIGIEG: And I'll do whatever I can to support a Biden-Harris administration. Whether that involves return to public service or whether that's from the outside.

BERMAN: A couple of questions that gets to the news, and the first one has to do with the election and the idea that you say you're way ahead -- the Post Office. A lot of people are concerned about the Postal Service and changes that were made that slowed down mail delivery. Yesterday, the Postmaster General announced he is suspending those changes. Although frankly, we don't know if they're being reversed because they won't tell us which is troubling or revealing in and of itself, but what do you make of that announcement?

BUTTIGIEG: I mean, it sounds like a step in the right direction, but as so often happens under this administration. The closest thing we get to good news is when they undo some damage that they shouldn't have done in the first place.

And we need more details. What about these machines that were removed and in some cases reportedly destroyed. And are they going to do everything that it takes to make sure that the Postal Service can serve us well in a pandemic going into an election. This is so important. And by the way, this is also so basic.

You know, when we're sizing up how developing countries are doing around the world or as we look through history at, you know, how the United States advanced, things like your ability to deliver mail, your ability to handle disease, these are the basics. And we are falling down on the basics under President Trump. It's one of the reasons why you don't have to be a die-hard Democrat to know that we need a change. BERMAN: Notre Dame, you are on the faculty of Notre Dame, this

semester has just suspended in-person classes for at least two weeks. What do you make of that decision? What does it tell you?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, it tells me the university is putting safety first. You know, father John, the university's president, has been really committed to trying to make in-person instruction safely possible. But you can't do it if it isn't safe. I'm really looking forward to engaging with students and colleagues at the university, and of course, the exchange of ideas, that's always better when you can do it in an in-person setting. But if that can't be done safely, if the number of cases just makes it impossible, then that has to come first.

BERMAN: I've got to go, but I do want to ask you one last question, quickly. Mail voter fraud, very limited around the country, almost infinitesimal fraud and mail-voting also very small, yet the president continues to say that if he loses, it will prove that the election is rigged. Why do you think he's saying that?

BUTTIGIEG: Because he's losing. But usually, when you lose an election in America, you acknowledge what happened and you move on. As a matter of fact, that's a very important part of the process. So for the president to suggest that -- and by the way, the president who's trailing and who is remarkably unpopular in this country, to say if he loses, that must mean the election didn't count, that's deeply disturbing and very dangerous.

And it's not just dangerous for America, it's dangerous for democracy itself. Remember, America is the most consequential democracy in the last 2,000 years on this planet. If America's leader is not committed to a democratic process, that undermines democracy around the world.

BERMAN: Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, thanks for coming on, a pleasure to see you again. Thanks so much.

BUTTIGIEG: Great to be with you, thanks.

BERMAN: A former top Trump administration official revealing shocking new details about his time in the White House and how he says the administration is going after him publicly now for endorsing Joe Biden.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:00]

BERMAN: Authorities in New Zealand increasing testing and extending virus restrictions as that country scrambles to contain a new outbreak. Although, we should note, it is exponentially smaller than what's happening here in the United States. CNN has reporters around the world covering all the latest developments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Will Ripley in Hong Kong. New Zealand is deploying hundreds of army troops to guard isolation hotels where patients with COVID-19 are being kept in isolation along with their family members and close contacts.

This as the nation continues to test tens of thousands of people per day. On Wednesday, they only identified six new cases. That is the lowest number this week, a sign that the social distancing measures, including a lockdown of New Zealand's largest city of Auckland seem to be working.

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Matt Rivers in Mexico City. At a World Health Organization briefing, officials once again highlighted how dire the situation is right now in the Americas. This region which makes up North, Central and South America only accounts for about 13 percent of the world's population, but 64 percent of all the officially-recorded deaths due to this virus have come in this part of the world.

[07:45:00]

Meanwhile, some good news here in Mexico, as officials say that newly confirmed cases each day are going down. This, though, as newly confirmed deaths each day remain among the highest of any country in the world.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Melissa Bell in Paris. Here in Europe, governments announcing day after day, fresh measures to try and bring those alarming coronavirus figures under control. The most impacted country is by that recent surge in the number of new cases, France, Spain, Greece, Croatia, all of those countries that Europeans have been heading to for their Summer break.

The question now is, what happens when people come back to work. Cities like Paris hit hard by new coronavirus rises, with the government announcing now that people are going to have to wear masks inside their open plan offices.

That delicate balance between the infringement on civil liberties and the need to bring this outbreak under control, clearly not for the time being resolved here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Our thanks to all of our correspondents. And we want to remember now some of the nearly 172,000 Americans lost to coronavirus. Christina Reyna(ph) taught elementary school in Corpus Christi, Texas, for 24 years. Her sister tells CNN affiliate "KRIS" that she planned to retire at the end of this school year.

She leaves behind a husband and two teenage children. A New Jersey couple was married for 62 years and they died hours apart, just two days after losing their son to coronavirus. Eighty five-year-old Larry Freda(ph) served in the army, had a 24-year career at a brewery, and then worked as a high school custodian. His wife, Vicky, was executive secretary to the mayor of Fairfield, New Jersey. Their 51-year-old son, John, was an optician, who loved writing, drawing and superhero movies.

New Jersey's governor says the three deaths so close together represented a kind of tragic poetry. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:00]

CAMEROTA: A former senior Trump administration official says he saw firsthand how dangerous President Trump is for America. Miles Taylor was Chief of Staff for the Department of Homeland Security. He tells CNN the White House is now coming after him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILES TAYLOR, FORMER TRUMP HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: I just got word within the past hour that a White House liaison employee at the department has been directed to go around to dig up dirt on me. Now, look, I'm fine with that. I can handle it. But here's the point. The administration within hours of me speaking out about this is already using taxpayer dollars for political purposes at the department. That just goes to show you that they can't break out of this cycle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So Taylor recalled one of what he says were many disturbing incidents that he witnessed inside the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAYLOR: But I distinctly remember an incident at the southwest border. We had a case where we had a number of migrants charging a border station. Now, what normally happens is border patrol has to do crowd control measures to protect officers on the line, so limited tear gas was used to make sure that facility wasn't charged.

When Donald Trump saw that on TV, he actually thought what we were doing was starting just to gas migrants across the border as a tactic. In fact, he immediately called the Secretary of Homeland Security to say, this is great, I love what you're doing, keep it going. He thought gassing was a policy, when really it was a safety measure and that one moment for officers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Can we just pause there for a second? He wanted to gas the migrants as a policy. He said this is great.

BERMAN: He thought it was a policy.

CAMEROTA: He thought it was a policy and he thought it was great. OK, there's more. Miles Taylor also tells the story of trying to brief President Trump on the disaster plan as Hurricane Florence threatened the U.S. in 2018.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAYLOR: At first, I thought the president was very focused, I thought he was really paying attention to the briefing. He was studying the phone board that had the picture of the storm track, and then he turned to me and he said, you know, I've got a question, yes, Mr. President, he said, do the -- do the hurricanes always spin in this direction?

He meant counter-clockwise. Now, that's called the coriolis effect. Same thing that causes toilets to spin in the other direction in Australia, a follow-up question he also had. But this is what the president was focused on.

Americans were in the path of a deadly hurricane, he needed to get out there and tell them to evacuate, and he was just marveled at the way that hurricanes spin in a way a third-grader might learn about earth science.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I mean, there's more what this guy Miles Taylor had to say was just astonishing. Joining us now to talk about it is former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. Anthony, great to see you. Did you know Miles Taylor?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I didn't know Miles, no. But I respect him. I mean, he's obviously a patriot and he's speaking out and he knows the risks of speaking out, Alisyn.

He knows that they'll stop at nothing, they have this ruthless opposition research machine and they try to tear up your life and see if they can tabloid you and find bad things about you -- I mean, I don't know. I mean, this is not the America that I think any of us want to live in, and then they do all the "what aboutism", they're trying to show the cities in distress. They're in distress because of the Trump administration.

They're in distress because we're lying about the science. And we wreck the economy because we couldn't listen to epidemiology.

CAMEROTA: Yes --

SCARAMUCCI: And so, I applaud what Miles is doing, but there are great risks here to him.

CAMEROTA: Let's just start at the end of what he was saying there, where he basically likened the president to a child, saying that he was mesmerized by the spinning of the hurricane and wanted to know if it was the same as toilets spinning and flushing. As they hoped that he was preparing for a disaster plan to save American lives. I mean, that's -- you know -- look, it's remarkable, it's jaw-dropping. Did you see qualities like that in your time?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, on the campaign, when issues came up, he always pushed people back like if you were going to talk to him about the Sykes-Picot treaty, you could see his eyes glaze over and he didn't really know what it was, and he didn't want you to tell him what it was because he didn't want to look ignorant to the other people. So he had a penchant for not wanting to listen to people, you know? I

was in the White House, I'm not going to mention who, but it was a senior cabinet person. I walked out of the Oval Office with him, I looked at him, I said don't lecture him because the minute you start lecturing him, he's going to get upset because he has this intellectual insecurity about what he knows and what he doesn't know.

[07:55:00]

And so, but you know, you've heard it from many people, it's not just Miles or somebody like me or the book "Anonymous" or others. And if you just look at the stark contrast of the people that have worked for him, they're not out there running around, getting on a soap box supporting him, they're like, OK, this guy is an incompetent disaster, a crisis came, he wouldn't be able to handle a crisis, a crisis came, it ruined the economy and it killed over 170,000 people -- we're going to have 200,000 people dead before November.

And so what do you guys want to do? Do you want to fix it? Do you want to denounce him? Do you want to tell the truth to the American people or are you going to sit there as willing acolytes and willing sycophants that will have to answer to the American people when this is over. What do you guys want to do?

BERMAN: Just one correction --

SCARAMUCCI: Have the courage of somebody like Miles Taylor and speak up!

BERMAN: Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. All I was going to say is Anthony, by November, we could be well over 200,000 Americans killed at this point. We're going to be 200,000 Americans --

SCARAMUCCI: Yes --

BERMAN: Killed in early September where you know, more than a 1,000 Americans a day are dying. It was notable to me that this came out during the Democratic National Convention --

SCARAMUCCI: Believe me, John, I didn't mean to understate it.

BERMAN: No, all I'm saying is, obviously, I mean, you know, it's a big deal --

SCARAMUCCI: Yes.

BERMAN: Republicans are coming out and endorsing Joe Biden. Miles Taylor is one, we've seen others actually speak at the convention. Anthony, you did this a long time ago at this point in political terms, probably in less than a year, but it feels like a hundred years ago. You also consistently say more are coming.

SCARAMUCCI: Yes, it was a year.

BERMAN: What are we going to see? What are we going to see?

SCARAMUCCI: Yes, so --

BERMAN: Of people who are inside the administration?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, I think that -- well, I think the bigger names don't want to drop until after Labor Day. I think that they're waiting because they want to have news impact. And you are pointing out on this show, a year ago, I said, you know, something's wrong here. I will point out that he was at his highest approval in popularity numbers.

Look at what happened over the last year. I came on the show, I looked at the two of you and said look, something is wrong with this guy. He's like Trump noble, he is melting down like a nuclear reactor. The Republicans will have a choice to cover it up or clean it up. I thought they were going to clean it up. I thought they were responsible, patriotic Americans that took an oath to the constitution, and they were going to clean it up, but they went for the cover-up, John.

You know, and so this is where we are now. They all know quietly how much worse it would be in another Trump administration, but you have to ask them, what are you guys doing? Is it personal power, it is fear? Are you afraid of the Twitter account? You don't want the opposition research on you and your family? What are you afraid of exactly? Why not just tell the American people the truth of what's going on and the rank incompetence so that we can move past this, heal the Republican Party and work on rebuilding America.

CAMEROTA: And Anthony, when you ask them that, I mean, when you say that to them, if you're still in touch with people in the White House, what do they say?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, I have to -- you know, you know, I'm always straight up, I'm not in touch with anybody in the White House at this point. I do have friends there, but it is just better for us not to be talking to each other about this sort of stuff.

What people do say is that they are fearful, what people say is they don't want to be tweeted at, they don't want that opposition research. You know, they care about their families. You know, this is a brutal business. You guys know it's a brutal business. I got an 11-day PHD in all of that nonsense that they do in Washington. I know how tough it is on people. And listen, I take the heat. You know, the president tweets about me, I mean, big deal. I mean, get over it, OK, he's a bully, big deal.

You've got to learn -- particularly in America, the bully is not supposed to win, guys, OK? I don't know how many Hollywood movies where the bully wins. He's not supposed to win. He's destroyed the country. He's destroyed the economy.

He's lying about the science, OK? He's intellectually vacuous. You can't go to him for a decision or to handle a crisis. He has no managerial skills, so now you have the entire executive branch -- it's like a billiard game every morning, the balls are flying everywhere. Nobody knows how to be coordinated and everybody is afraid of him. They're afraid that they're going to be the next guy, man or woman on the chopping block getting tweeted at. So --

CAMEROTA: Well --

SCARAMUCCI: That's how we're running the executive branch of one of the most successful countries that have ever existed.

CAMEROTA: Yes --

SCARAMUCCI: I mean, come on, this is ridiculous.

CAMEROTA: Well, as Anthony you've pointed out, as has John, you've been telling us this for a year now, and you have said that closer to election day, more people will come out, so we'll see. I mean, Miles Taylor is one of them. So, anyway, we'll see --

BERMAN: All right, I believe --

CAMEROTA: We'll see, we'll see --

SCARAMUCCI: I believe it will happen. You will have -- you will have the anonymous will come out now too, Alisyn.

BERMAN: Oh, really?

CAMEROTA: Who is -- who is -- oh, really? Who is that, Anthony?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, you'll have to wait and see. I honestly don't know. So -- but I do believe by mid-September, early October, you will be hearing from the person that wrote that book and it's going into paperback shortly.

BERMAN: You know, it's an awful lot for not knowing.

(LAUGHTER)