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Jill Biden Speaks at Democratic National Convention; Kamala Harris to Accept Democratic Party Nomination for Vice President; Wildfires in Northern California Prompt Evacuations; CNN Poll: 39 Percent Say Schools in their Area Should Reopen; Few Masks Worn at Trump Campaign Event in Arizona. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 19, 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]

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: September, early October, you will be hearing from the person that wrote that book, and it's going into paperback shortly.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He knows an awful lot for not knowing.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Anthony Scaramucci, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: A man who knows a tease. Thank you very much, Anthony.

SCARAMUCCI: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: NEW DAY continues right now.

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

BERMAN: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. Joe Biden officially received the Democratic Party nomination for president. And the process itself made history. You can see them celebrating there with the family. This is a decidedly low tech campaign moment. This was high-tech, though, this remarkable roll call from 50 states and seven territories, you saw each location. It was really remarkable. We had everything from California to Calamari. There was Tim Ryan, Ohio Congressman there, who did the O-H-I-O chant.

It was highlighting the diversity and the breadth of America at a time when a lot of us can't really get far from our front door. There was also just this unmistakable messaging from the Democrats. Jill Biden speaking from the classroom where she once taught to highlight the displacement that so many people are feeling during the pandemic. She focused on love and family and struggle, her own family's struggles.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JILL BIDEN, JOE BIDEN'S WIFE: Four days after Beau's funeral, I watched Joe shave and put on his suit. I saw him steel himself in the mirror, take a breath, put his shoulders back, and walk out into a world empty of our son. He went back to work. That's just who he is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We'll hear from the vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama. His former senior adviser is standing by right now to reveal everything that President Obama will say in just a moment.

CAMEROTA: We look forward to that.

Overnight, here is your status report on coronavirus. More than 1,300 Americans died yesterday from coronavirus. Hundreds of students and universities -- at universities across the United States have tested positive. Notre Dame is just the latest university to suspend classes, that's just eight days after their reopening. So we're going to speak to a college administrator who is also a medical doctor in just a few moments.

Joining us now is CNN political adviser David Axelrod. He's a former senior adviser to President Obama. Also with us, Pulitzer Prize winning Connie Schultz. So Axe, you heard John just tease the big announcement you're going to make. Exactly what is President Obama going to say?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I will reveal that when Scaramucci tells us who Anonymous is.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: We were this close.

AXELROD: I think President Obama has been pretty clear about his feelings lately. He has not held back in his critique, in his public statements in recent months. And he'll build on that. He really does believe this is a -- not just an election between two men, but an election about democracy itself. And he'll stress that I'm sure.

I also expect that he's going to -- and I have spoken with his team. I think that he will speak directly to some of these young activists who have been so vocal about their desire for change in this country, and on that desire, but also urge them to stay in the game here and focus on the task in front of us.

So I think it's going to be a continuation of what we have seen in terms of critique of Trump, but I also think the one thing that Barack Obama can do perhaps better than anyone other than Joe Biden's family is testify to who Joe Biden is, and that's an important element of this convention, and he will do that as well, and particularly about his role as Obama's partner over those eight years and the contributions and the leadership that he showed during those years. So he's got a lot of work to do in that speech, and I think he's very focused on doing it. BERMAN: So Connie, we're at halftime, right, at the Democratic

Convention. We're halfway through at this point. And we have heard a lot about Joe Biden's character in comparison to President Trump's character. We've heard a lot about struggle. We're heard a lot about the pandemic. What is left do you think in these next two nights for the Democrats?

CONNIE SCHULTZ, PULITZER PRIZE WINNING COLUMNIST: I would like to see a continuation of Jill Biden's speech, this piece of it, when she talked about the need for America to heal. Normally the first -- the potential first lady is really not a contest. We don't spend much time thinking about that. But this time it's different. This moment is different. And when she talked about how you heal a country, and how it's very similar to how you heal a family -- I reviewed here memoir for "The Washington Post" last year and she talked a lot about what that involved.

[08:05:06]

And I was watching the response and listening to the response, including from friends around the country after she spoke, and they were relieved to hear someone address the almost universal sense of pain and loss that's going on in this country right now for so many reasons, even before the pandemic hit us.

So while I appreciate and I see the need, the necessity for constantly going after Donald Trump. We must. He is the most dangerous person -- well, the most dangerous man to ever inhabit the White House, I hope for a few more of those sorts of messages as well, because America needs to feel that somebody is seeing them in their entirety, which certainly includes the pain of this period of time.

CAMEROTA: I think Connie makes such an interesting point, David. And for you as somebody who understands how to lasso a message or a slogan, this is not the message that Joe Biden started with when he got into this race. This is one that found him in many ways. The healing, I can heal a family. I can heal a fractured country. That isn't what he said in the debates. That wasn't what his selling point was. But last night that did seem to be the message that everyone was amplifying.

AXELROD: Yes. Look, I quite agree with Connie. And just to differ a little bit with you, Alisyn, I think he did begin this campaign with a speech about recovering the soul of America and talking about the American community. And I think people are hungering for that. We've had a president who's been relentlessly divisive. That's his political project. He believes that that's how he wins, by dividing the country. And there are a lot of people in this country who are tired of being divided. And as Connie pointed out, that was true even been the virus, but the ability to heal is much more important now that we're going through this.

I also -- it is important to make the case against Donald Trump, but the most important work of this convention is to lift up Joe Biden and make clear what the offering is in terms of Biden and where he wants to lead the country, because people understand the case against Trump. Sixty percent of Biden's votes in polls right before the convention said they are voting for him because they are voting against Donald Trump. The mission of this convention should be to give people a richer sense of Joe Biden and the things that he is bringing to it, and at the top of that last are character, decency, connectedness to people, and a record of leadership that even though he's been on the scene for a very long time is not all that well known. That story has not been told, and this convention is an opportunity to tell it. And I think they did a good job last night of doing it. Jill Biden certainly did.

Last point I want to make, culture, cultural. One of the reasons that Donald Trump bought an impeachment trying to stop Joe Biden from becoming the nominee is that Biden is culturally inconvenient for Donald Trump. He's an older white working class guy from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who is very relatable to many people in this country, including people who Trump wants to grab back through fear. And what Jill Biden did last night was really continue to root him and his family and his orientation in a place that is very approachable to the American people. Next week, they are going to tear Biden apart and they're going to create fear about who he is, or try to. This was a fortification that I think is very important.

BERMAN: This was a classroom. We have all been in that classroom, right, either as students or as parents. It was very relatable, very easy to connect to that location and that image for everyone in America.

Connie, we're going to hear from Senator Kamala Harris tonight for the first time during this convention. She is the vice presidential nominee. We did see a picture that her husband tweeted out last night of Senator Harris watching the nomination roll call, and she's wearing her Howard University sweatshirt there. Like any American I think last night watching the convention from home, what does she need to do? What do you expect to hear from her tonight, Connie?

SCHULTZ: I expect Kamala to be the person she has always been. She is extremely smart. I know her a bit, and I know Doug, I know how supportive he is being of her in this moment. I expect her to be able to talk about policy and to take on Donald Trump in a way that only Kamala Harris can. There's another candidate in this race, and it's the Democratic Party. And we saw the party -- I felt in terms of how widely diverse and representative it is with the roll call. I wish every speaker had been identified by name, that's the journalist in me, and I wish there had been no elected officials in that collage. And I'm saying that as a wife of a U.S. senator, they get enough attention.

[08:10:00]

But I think she's a continuation, she is the embodiment of that theme. She represents the future of our country in so many different ways. And I don't mean to make her simply an emblem. I don't think she is that. She is her own person and she is -- as I said, wicked smart. So I'm really looking forward to a speech that I'm sure she's had a direct hand in. In fact, I read this morning, she's been working on it ever since she became aware that she would be the nominee. BERMAN: You said wicked just because I'm from Boston.

CAMEROTA: I know. Connie is in the Midwest. She's using your language.

BERMAN: She dropped the bomb, the wicked bomb right there, just so I could understand it and relate to it.

CAMEROTA: She's clearly bilingual.

SCHULTZ: I have a daughter in Rhode Island. What can I tell you?

BERMAN: Calamari. Calamari, have her send us snacks.

SCHULTZ: The calamari state. I didn't even know that.

BERMAN: I had no idea. I had no idea. I grew up 10 miles from it, I had no idea that it was the Calamari state.

CAMEROTA: Think of all you've missed out on. Connie --

BERMAN: That's why roll call was amazing. It was a travel log. You got to see the entire country and people from all -- it was very, aside from politics you could connect to it.

CAMEROTA: It was quite a menu. Connie, great to have your voice on NEW DAY. Thanks so much for being here.

SCHULTZ: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Ax, great to see you.

AXELROD: Good to see you.

CAMEROTA: We have some breaking news right now. Evacuations are under way right now in northern California as wildfires rage between San Francisco and Sacramento. This is one of more than two dozen fires that are burning across the state, and CNN's Dan Simon is live in in the town of Vacaville with the breaking details. What's the situation there, Dan?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Alisyn. This is an extremely dangerous situation for the community of Vacaville. You can see these flames along this ridgeline as authorities have issued an evacuation order for residents of this community. We know it has a town -- it's a town of about 100,000 people. You've got several neighborhoods that are impacted. This is part of a series of fires impacting the North Bay, north of San Francisco, all induced by lightning. And these fires have spread. Of course, you're dealing with challenging conditions throughout the state of California with the heat. And because there are so many fires burning, resources are stretched thin.

We know that Governor Newsom has issued an emergency declaration to try to free up some resources from other states to get more firefighters in here to battle this situation. Right now, though, the destruction appears to be fairly limited, but we'll get a better sense of things once we get daylight. Right now the urgent situation is in Vacaville where the fire jumped a major roadway overnight and is now threatening that community. Again, you can see the fire behind me and you can see these police cars just trying to get folks to evacuate. Alisyn, we'll send it back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Dan, please stay safe. Keep us posted on whatever develops there. Thank you very much.

Also, more breaking news. There's this massive fire burning in an industrial warehouse near Dallas, Texas. This is burning at a plant that manufactures and recycles plastics. Black smoke is pouring, as you can see, very high into the air there. There are also reports of explosions in the area. It's not clear at this hour if anyone has been hurt. We'll keep you posted as we get more information on that.

So hundreds of students at colleges across the U.S. are testing positive for coronavirus. Thousands more are quarantined this morning, so is it safe to return to campus? Sanjay Gupta is next with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:44]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some brand now polling in morning from CNN on the state of the coronavirus and our attitudes about it. We asked how people feel about the K-12 schools opening for in-person education, just 39 percent said yes, 57 percent say no.

And look at this. Do you personally know someone who's been diagnosed with coronavirus? Sixty-seven percent in August compared to just 22 percent in April. I suppose that makes sense as this progresses and we now see the case level up near 5.5 million.

Joining us, CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

And, Sanjay, the discussion is over schools but the idea that a majority of parents aren't comfortable with it is revealing. And I think it's incumbent I think on the schools to make parents comfortable.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And I should add to that, you know, there hasn't been sort of a national policy on this, right? I mean, people have sort of had to figure this out on their own. I know we did. I mean, everyone has to sort of become an amateur epidemiologist nowadays, look at the data in their particular area. Some school districts made the decision for the parents, right? So, I think it was 63 or so of the largest school 100 districts basically said, at least they're going to begin the school year virtually.

But for a lot of school districts they had to make the choice. And, you know, parents had to sort of figure this out. So we're getting some sense now of how comfortable they are or not comfortable.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: It's totally geographical also, Sanjay. I mean, if you're in a state that did not have many cases right now, you're more comfortable, and if you're in a state that's red hot, that we see on the map --

BERMAN: I think it's more partisan than geographical. Our polling breaks it down.

CAMEROTA: Do they? Do they break it down geographically?

BERMAN: No, but sometimes partisanship reflects geography, but partisanship is by overwhelmingly Republicans say they're more comfortable than Democrats.

CAMEROTA: That's interesting because often, some of the red states are aware it's, you know, at its worst right now. But, I mean, I guess I speak for somebody who in a state where it was very bad, very bad, now it's very good. So my comfort level is different than it would have been in April.

GUPTA: Yeah. I think that's right and I think that the idea that there is a correlation between, you know, these red states and the policies that they put in place. I mean, I live in the state now that we have, I think as of today, the fastest per capita growth of coronavirus in the country, Florida is behind us, and Louisiana after that. So, I mean, there's a lot of concern here.

But I can tell you that even in my kids' school, the majority of people are still sending their kids back. I don't know if that reflects their worries -- I'm worried, but I'm still going to do it or what. But the majority of people are sending their kids back and it's concerning because you have high positivity rate. You have a trend that is not being going downward, even going upward for the last several days and I think there's no question, increased mobility increased clustering of people within a school is going to make the numbers go up even more.

This is very concerning. I mean, I think you have to have the perspective to look at this from ten years from now and say, so let me get this straight. In the middle of a pandemic with the numbers increasing 1,000 fold higher than when you pulled the kids out of school, at that point, it made sense to you to put kids back in school.

[08:20:01]

I don't think history is going to judge us very kindly in terms of how we actually made some of the decisions.

BERMAN: So, Sanjay, there's some vaccine news this morning. And over the last several months I prided myself in understanding a little bit of all the medical news, I'm a little confused by this. What exactly is the news? This has to do with the Moderna vaccine trial and who's part of it. What is the news and why is it important?

GUPTA: Well, you know, I think one of the things about these trials, especially when you get to phase three is you got to make sure that -- first of all, there's not young people, people under the age of 18 are not part of these trials. We have to sort of figure out as far as the trials who is the most affected by the disease and make sure they are adequately represented in the trials.

So, for example, now we know from the investor's call yesterday, that one of the targets, they really want to hit is that 50 percent of the people should be over the age of 65. You do know and we have heard for some time that people who are older, people who have pre-existing conditions are going to be the most likely to actually get sick from this disease.

Are they participating enough in this trials? What you often find is that it's the worried well, if you will. Younger and healthy people who are worried about this that are the most likely to step up and volunteer for these trials. But wherever they are, there's 89 sites around the country where they're actually recruiting for these trials. You got to make sure they're getting a good diversity in terms of age and overall demographics.

CAMEROTA: We have another poll, I don't know if we have it ready to show you, but it's about, if you feel comfortable, if you feel comfortable getting a vaccine, this is interesting, Sanjay, because in May, all Americans, 66 percent, said they'd feel comfortable and now the number has gone down now --

GUPTA: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: -- to 56 percent.

Maybe people were more desperate -- feeling more desperate in May. I don't know how -- well, how would you explain it?

GUPTA: I think that this -- the whole sort of framing around the Operation Warp Speed and this is going to move so quickly has given people some unease about the overall safety of the vaccine. And there's been a fair amount of vaccine hesitancy in this country for some time. And so that was sort of the baseline that make before May.

But it's gotten worse. You know, in addition to doing the trials, making sure you have adequate representation of trials, also making sure that you can distribute and manufacture this vaccine, there's going to need to be the campaigns to sort of establish some trust around this vaccine as well.

I think people right now say, it's great that it's moving really fast but is it going to be safe for me? You keep hearing from Fauci and from the FDA they're not going to cut corners overall on the safety aspect of this, but didn't you just say that it takes ten years to make this vaccine typically and now you're saying you can do it in a year? I think it's given some people pause.

If you don't get enough people taking the vaccine, we don't know effective it's going to be, you know, if we don't know how -- what the percentage of the people taking the vaccine is going to be it's tough to determine whether or not you're going to get to that herd immunity.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much for all of the information as always.

GUPTA: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: So President Trump traveled to Yuma, Arizona, to deliver a campaign speech on immigration. It took place in the county with one of the highest infection rates in the country, but very few people wore masks and they were often very close together.

CNN's Miguel Marquez was there to tell us more about what he experienced.

And I know, Miguel, that this -- covering this rally left a big impression on you.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ha! Look, I have been doing this for so long and to see this, especially after the Tulsa experience that the Trump campaign had, to see this now is even more shocking.

Look, when Arizona had its massive outbreak in June, what did the governor here do? He shut down the bars and clubs and he allowed -- reversed himself allowing localities to put in mask orders. Yesterday was a reversal to before that time. This was basically a big group with a lot of people in it, several hundred people, loud music. Very few people wearing masks. They sometimes put them on, sometimes didn't.

They were up next to each other because the music was so loud they were talking to each other very loudly. You could -- they were taking selfies.

Beyond all of that, because this was in an airplane hangar because it makes I easier for the president to fly in on Air Force One, the people had to be brought in at a distance. They had to park at a civic center and they were put on buses for half an hour, 45 minutes each, on the buses very people wearing masks. These are in closed spaces. You're in an enclosed space waiting to get into the venue and then inside the venue.

Just shocking that after all that we have been through, that after all that we know about the coronavirus, that we would be in a place where that many people were shoved together for so long a period of time.

[08:25:01]

It was a hangar. They eventually opened the doors to the hangar, for about and a hour though, it was all -- all those people just shoved into that on location.

They did take temperatures on the bus and before we went to the press area. But, you know, I have to say that neither the device nor the person taking the temperature or taking the temperature at all, now that we know more about the coronavirus really indicates that this is probably the best way to indicate whether one is sick from the virus or not.

CAMEROTA: OK. This is remarkable because, I mean, earlier we were looking at pictures from outside. But here's what you're talking about. People inside sitting shoulder to shoulder inside this airplane hangar, many without masks and Miguel, I think it's notable because our viewers have watched you so many times inside a hospital, in the most hard-hit, dire hospitals, inside COVID wards where people -- too many people were dying every day and are you telling us that you felt safer there than you did yesterday?

MARQUEZ: I at least -- so four hospitals total. Two in New York, two in Texas and I have spoken to many people who either have the disease or had the disease and are recently getting over it. Never have I felt so -- the level of exposure that we saw here.

You know, in Tulsa, when the president had his rally there, there were reports that maybe several hundred people got sick after that. Herman Cain recently died. He may have picked up the virus there.

I certainly felt safer being in a hospital ward, an ICU ward or a COVID only ward in some of the hospitals with full PPE on, knowing that I was taking every precaution possible as opposed to at an event that was basically a nightclub for several hours, you know, with people who I had no idea what their history was and who might get sick. Now, we can just wait and see what happens.

CAMEROTA: Yes, we will. Miguel, thank you. Thank you for your reporting very much.

So a health care activist who lost the ability to speak because of ALS delivered a moving and powerful speech last night. His wife is going to join us with their story.

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