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Schools and Colleges Struggle to Reopen Amid Pandemic; Vaccine Chief Predicts COVID-19 Vaccine By Next Spring; Germany Records Most New Virus Cases Since April. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 20, 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]

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, they want to try and obviate some of that going forward.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Parents in New York City, obviously, one of the hugest public school systems in the country if not the, are still confused about what's going to happen that first two weeks of September because the mayor has said that kids are going back for in- person teaching in the classroom, yet teachers are threatening to strike if there is not testing for all students -- well, one of the things they want is testing for all students and teachers. Is that doable? Is that realistic? Can that happen?

GUPTA: I think it is doable. I mean, frankly, we should have been able to be there around -- across the country by this point. And we have seen big systems like Yale and now University of Illinois, where they're basically creating their own tests. They're saying, you know what?

We're sick of waiting for other sort of testing systems to come out. We'll make our own. We'll make it available to our students and our faculty. This is the sort of assurance testing, Alisyn, right. We talk about testing symptomatic people. You're sick, you get tested. We talk about doing surveillance testing. Trying to do biopsy, if you will, of the community.

This is the assurance testing that frankly, we've been talking about on your program since March, where you can get the testing and have some assurance that, "A", you're not carrying the virus, and "B", people around you, that you're going to come in contact with are not carrying the virus.

Admittedly, these tests aren't perfect. But the tests have gotten a lot better, the one at Yale, the one now at the University of Illinois. I mean, we're in the 95 percent-plus sort of sensitivity. So, these are pretty darned good tests and they can be made widely available.

U of I, Illinois, says they can do 20,000 tests a day using their system. And my guess is that over time, we're going to have even better tests. The question I think you're asking, and I think it's a really important question to ask is why aren't we there yet? As we are going into school season, we should have already had these plans in place, and I think that's what the New York teachers are reacting to. Who they themselves are often more vulnerable than the students they teach.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, Sanjay, the guy -- the doctor who is in charge of Operation Warp Speed, Moncef Slaoui, he did an interview where he set a timeline that at least to me seemed a little bit not surprising, but different than what we're hearing by a few months. I just want to read some of this.

He said that he expects a coronavirus vaccine to be widely available sometime next year, perhaps between April and June, according to new report. Slaoui in an interview, Wednesday with "Business Insider" said he expects most of the U.S. high-risk population of around 70 million or 80 million people will have been immunized by then. That's April and June. That's after flu season. That's after the Winter. That's a long time.

GUPTA: That is a long time, people have been thinking maybe it'd be this Fall, obviously. So this is going to sound very different to them for reporters who have been covering this. This makes more sense and is more in line with sort of the timelines that we've been hearing from the various companies as well. I do want to point out, John, I think there's been a little bit of a shift here in terms of what we're hearing from Operation Warp Speed and from the task force, even.

Yesterday, you heard that they sort of pulled back an idea of an emergency, use authorization for a certain type of therapy known as Convalescent Plasma. Now you're hearing from Operation Warp Speed, slowing down the vaccine timeline.

I mean, there are specific reasons for the vaccine. I mean, they have not enrolled enough people yet at this point, and they haven't enrolled the types of demographics of people as my colleague Elizabeth Cohen has been talking about. We need more people to represent black and brown America because they are the people who are more affected by this disease.

So it's going to take longer. But I think there's also the shift. This more willingness to say, hey, look, we -- let's be realistic here about what the therapies are going to be, what the vaccine's going to be, and even that might be a little bit of an accelerated timeline. So, we'll see, but that -- this is more in line with what we've been hearing from others.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, you're coming to us from Atlanta, Georgia, and yesterday your governor there explained basically how he sees the pandemic. So listen to this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): This is what's so frustrating about pandemic politics and leaked reports. We're glad to talk about these numbers every day. Dr. Toomey did press all week. I don't think I've seen hardly any of that quoted in the paper. So I wouldn't be able to speak to who leaked the report, why they leaked it, what the politics were behind the leak? All I'm asking for is Georgians to get all the information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, does he not like that it was leaked. That there's community spread and people are -- officials are worried about it?

GUPTA: Our governor wants people to have all the information. And he's right. People should have all the information. They should be reminded that we were one of the last states in the country to close, we were one of the first states to open.

[07:35:00]

We opened so early that even the president was sort of shocked, Georgia's already opening? When we opened, we opened bars and nail salons and bowling alleys, had no regard for what was going to happen in the Fall with schools.

We have the fastest, the quickest pace of acceleration of new cases. We have the highest per capita cases in the country, perhaps in the world. Right now, when it comes to Georgia, this governor expressed seemingly genuine surprise that this virus could spread asymptomatically, despite the fact that people already knew this for weeks or for months.

He has not put a state-wide mask mandate in, and has threatened mayors with lawsuit who do that. I mean, these are the facts. This is what my governor is doing for the people that I live with, my family, in this state. So he wants people to have all the information. It's a disaster here in Georgia, governor. I mean, nothing has gone right and you've actually condemned and maligned the people who have actually tried to do something. So that's the facts -- those are the facts that the people of Georgia should have.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, thank you. Thank you. We rely on you for the facts, and thank you for spelling it out in such stark terms. We really appreciate talking to you.

GUPTA: Yes, thanks.

CAMEROTA: Germany recording its highest number of new coronavirus cases in nearly four months. The uptick is fueling fears of a resurgence in infections across Europe. So CNN has reporters around the world covering the latest developments for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: I'm Anna Stewart in London. Cases of coronavirus in Germany have risen by 1,707 in just 24 hours. The sharpest daily increase since the end of April, according to the country's top institution for infectious diseases. It's far, though from Germany's peak, which was over 6,000 cases a day at the beginning of April. There are concerns, though, that this spike, which follows similar upward trends in cases in other parts of Europe, could be a sign that the continent is heading into a second wave of coronavirus.

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Matt Rivers in Mexico City. Further south in Bolivia, that country has just announced it has received 200 respirators from the United States, a donation worth more than $2.5 million.

That donation, part of a wider trend recently that's seen the United States try and give out more coronavirus-related aid in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially as China has donated a lot of personal protective equipment here since the pandemic really took off in this region. The United States Agency for International Development says that it has dedicated more than 140 million to its coronavirus response in Latin America and the Caribbean.

KAORI ENJOJI, CNN REPORTER: I'm Kaori Enjoji in Tokyo. A second wave of the coronavirus shows no signs of abating here in Japan. Nearly 11,000 new cases of COVID-19 that were reported across the country on Wednesday. That means nearly one-third of the total number of cases during the pandemic have been logged since the start of the month. Doctors are concerned about the rise in the number of seriously ill patients who just tripled since August 1st.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Our thanks to our reporters all around the world. We want to remember some of the more than 173,000 Americans lost to coronavirus. Michael Empercino(ph) worked in law enforcement for more than 32 years in New York state and for the last 7 years in South Carolina. He was the S.W.A.T negotiation's team leader for his department there.

They say he'll be remembered for his commitment to helping others with a smile and wry humor. Lillian Gallagher worked for the past two years, a nutrition services at Akin Elementary School in Leander, Texas. In a letter to parents, the principal wrote that Mrs. Gallagher had a very sweet and caring way towards students and staff. James Holmes(ph) had been a county commissioner in Chatham County, Georgia, since 2004.

He's also a basketball coach at Savannah State University and program director at the city's Boys and Girls Clubs for the past 35 years. A local TV station there reports flags at county facilities will be flown at half-staff. Holmes(ph) is survived by his wife of 35 years. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILES TAYLOR, FORMER DHS CHIEF OF STAFF: The president's talked before about wanting to purchase Greenland. But one time before we went down, he told us, not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico. Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland, because in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, that's a former Trump administration official, he's now speaking out about all he saw during his time in the White House, including that President Trump liked the idea of swapping out Puerto Rico and the 3 million Americans who live there in exchange for Greenland.

But wait, there's more. Joining us now is Miles Taylor. He served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security for President Trump, and though he's a Republican, he has publicly endorsed Joe Biden at the DNC. Miles, great to see you.

TAYLOR: Alisyn and John, thank you both for having me this morning, and I appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: We have been looking forward to having you, Miles, because the stories that you tell are jaw-dropping. I mean, let's just start with that one, OK? That you just told about how he wanted to swap out Puerto Rico, I suppose he doesn't consider Puerto Ricans Americans, but he seems to have disdain in the story that you told, particularly for poor people. Did you hear that? Was that just a one-off or did you hear that repeatedly during your time?

TAYLOR: It's a good question, Alisyn, and I would say this up-front. It's not a one-off nor when the president made comments like that, did we think they were jokes. And I want to be fair, the president can be funny, behind the scenes, he can be a referent. But when you're actually expecting him, sitting behind the resolute desk to be presidential, and he makes statements like that, and he means them.

[07:45:00]

That gives you a great deal of pause. Now, beyond Puerto Rico -- I mean, we saw that in a lot of places around the country, it's no coincidence, Alisyn, that those tended to be places that were Democratic strongholds or Democratic cities or states that the president knew were opposed to him, and those places he saw, as we've heard before, that he believed were rat-infested, poor, disgusting, broken down.

This is how he would talk about places of the country, over which he presides as the nation's chief executive, and that was a little bit more than dispiriting to the people around the president who served with him.

CAMEROTA: You know, Miles, that is my question. Can you just tell us the atmospherics in the room? When the president says things like that, and you know this time he's being serious and he's denigrating poor people and he's calling them dirty, et cetera. Are people laughing? Are people uncomfortably sort of exchanging side-ways glances? What happens when he says things like that?

TAYLOR: It's exactly that. And I'm going to tell you something that personally was one of the most disappointing things to me while serving in the administration. Whether it was a phone call from the president or errant comments he would make at the side of an event or a meeting in the Oval Office or in the White House Situation Room.

More often than not, the majority of the room would do what you said, they would sit silently, they would shift uncomfortably in their chairs, they would, you know, exchange glances, people would take notes.

It was a small minority of folks that would push back against the president. They were there. They slowly started to diminish as the term went on, and I was really proud to serve with people like that. I'm really proud to have had bosses and worked with cabinet secretaries that were like that. But unfortunately, far too many people would sit there silently when the president would make inappropriate comments and were too scared to speak truth to power. That was a frequent occurrence.

CAMEROTA: Yesterday, the president talked about his support for this kind of dark underbelly of a conspiracy network. He sounds like he likes them, even though they talk -- they make up conspiracies about pedophiles, et cetera, because they like him. So let me play this moment for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I don't know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate. But I don't know much about the movement. I have heard that it is gaining in popularity and I've heard these are people that love our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So Miles, do you have any sense from working with him why the president falls so often for dark conspiracy theories?

TAYLOR: Well, look, if we've learned one lesson about Donald Trump, it's that he thinks if something aligns with his personal interests, it is good. If it doesn't align with his personal interests, it is bad. In the case of things like QAnon and conspiracy theories, as long as they support and reinforce the president's world view, he will embrace them with a full hug.

But if someone walks into his office with a contrary world view or something to dispel a conspiracy theory, they won't get over the threshold without a full cavity search, OK. This president isn't interested in truth, he's interested in his truth.

And I want to say one more thing about the QAnon piece. This is what has me really worried about the election. In 2016, we were concerned, of course, about Russians meddling. I think this time around, the bigger concern is the president himself falling victim to foreign meddling, and the discord that will create in our country. And it's very important to note this.

The inner agency -- the departments and agencies within the federal government have done extraordinary work to prepare for this election. Chris Krebs who leads our domestic cyber security agency, Director Wray who leads the FBI, and just before he left, our former director of National Intelligence, who's now gone.

But these are folks who have put in place an extraordinary system to fight back against foreign interference. The one thing they can't prepare for is that the president himself might fall victim to those conspiracy theories, those lies and that misinformation. And in that circumstance, it's tough to say what our federal government will do. And I think we're unprepared for that outcome despite the great work that those civil servants have done to prepare us for 2020.

BERMAN: Hey, Miles, it's John Berman here. A little bit connected to that is something that President Obama said last night, and I don't know whether you ever voted for him or not, I imagined not, given the fact that you are Republican. But President Obama said, quote, "this administration has shown it will tear down our democracy if that's what it takes to win." I'm curious what you make of that. What evidence of that you have seen?

TAYLOR: Well, I think that the president is -- President Obama is right. Donald Trump will fight viciously and vigorously to make sure that he doesn't lose this election. But I don't just mean up and until November 3rd, I mean, after November 3rd.

[07:50:00]

My worry is that Bush v. Gore in the 2000s will look like child's play compared to what this president might do if he feels like he's got a shot at delegitimizing the election. We are now in a moment where there is a predictable level of civil unrest in our country that we've not yet seen.

We experienced the Summer of civil unrest, but now because of the president's actions, we may well experience a Fall and Winter of civil unrest like we've never seen if he doesn't show more responsibility in how he talks about the election, about how he talks about our democratic process.

So I don't think it's unreasonable at all for President Obama to say that there's a concern about the fabric of our republic. Donald Trump has taken the scissors to the fabric of our republic and he's cutting it into little shreds.

CAMEROTA: By the way, I mean --

BERMAN: I'm sorry, Kayleigh McEnany --

CAMEROTA: Yes --

BERMAN: Yesterday refused to say whether the president would accept the results of the election. What do you think? I mean, what do you think happens if after the votes come in, he's behind. What do you fear that he might do?

TAYLOR: I fear that the president at least right now is preparing to heavily litigate in every state where he has the opportunity. Now, we of course remember in 2000, this was largely Florida. Now, there was, you know, some questions about Ohio at the time, but even just contesting Florida threw the nation into chaos.

I could see the president wanting to send an army of lawyers to contest as many states as possible to make it difficult for the electors to certify and for another president to take office. I can't even believe, John, we're having this conversation, right? I'm an American too. I'm a taxpayer, yes, I served in the administration, yes, I'm a life-long Republican, yes, I wanted the president to succeed, he disappointed us.

But now, I'm sitting here talking to you and we're wondering, will the president of the United States facilitate a peaceful transfer of power? I never thought I would say those words in the United States, and I never thought that people would be so scared to speak out against this man.

Look, let me tell you this, I have been out -- I've been out here for maybe 48 hours telling the truth about what I experienced with this president. Of course, I have already received vicious, graphic death threats. Now, I'll be fine. No one needs to play the violin for me, but this is why people are scared to speak out.

They're scared to speak out because they have families, they live in homes, they have jobs, and they're scared because the president doesn't tamp it down. He fans the flames of this divisiveness and he makes people fear for their lives. This is the United States of America.

This is not Belarus. This is not a country that should be in civil unrest and turmoil, but the president has turned it into one. And that's again, why we've got to look forward. That's why I came out and decided I've got to support Joe Biden. I may disagree with Joe Biden on a lot of policies and a lot of political areas, but where I don't disagree is that he's a genuine man of character and that's why this is a character election.

CAMEROTA: And so, I mean, because you're painting this scene, because the president has painted this very scene, Miles. I mean, Kayleigh McEnany as John said yesterday, the president has always said he'll see what happens after the election, he'll make a determination in the aftermath. That's not how a democracy works. Who -- if this happens, because he is signaling it all, who is going to get him out of the White House? What is going to happen in that case?

TAYLOR: Well, I'm really hesitant to speculate about whether we got to a circumstance that the president physically would refuse to leave the building. I think that's almost too terrifying for us to talk about, but, you know, certainly there are folks giving that consideration in various corners of the U.S. government and elsewhere.

But what we've learned is this from Donald Trump, and what I learned in my time is that when disaster strikes, whatever kind of disaster it is, we get a two for one deal with Donald Trump. What do I mean by that? Whether it's a hurricane, whether it's nationwide civil unrest or whether it's contested election.

When there's a disaster, we not only have the American people worried about that immediate danger and threat of the incident, we also have them worried about the president himself. This would happen consistently. I can remember one time, we went to brief the president about a big storm system that was coming into the United States.

Americans were worried enough about potential loss of life and damage. And the president I remember, he looked at me on the couch and he said to me -- as we were trying to convince him that he needed to tell Americans to evacuate, he said, you know, well, I was watching TV the other day and there was a guy with a MAGA hat in a grocery store parking lot, and he was stocking up for the hurricane. And he said, I thought that was wonderful.

That's what Trump supporters do, they hunker down and they ride it out. And I'm going to tell people to ride this thing out. We were stunned, everyone in the Oval Office was in silence and thank God someone spoke up, I won't say who it is because this is all about the president, and I'm not trying to call out former colleagues.

But someone actually jumped in and said a good thing, said Mr. President, if that storm hits and your supporters don't evacuate, we might have a harder time winning those states. You don't want to lose your voters to a hurricane that destroys their homes and maybe even kills them. And the president said, you know what? You're absolutely right. Let's tell them to evacuate. That's what it took.

[07:55:00]

It took telling the president that his supporters might die to get him convinced that he should probably support the governor's call for widespread evacuations.

BERMAN: Really? I mean, you have to frame it in terms of how many MAGA supporters will be affected or hurt, and that's what gets him to pay attention? That's what it took in a hurricane?

TAYLOR: John, that's not even a joke. Not a piece of that was hyperbole. That was almost verbatim how that conversation played out. I walked out and was just stunned. But of course, you try not to convey that to too many people.

If I had gone and told our FEMA senior leadership that day, that that's what the president had said, it would have been a huge distraction for their mission. But that's why I left this administration, again, I can't say it enough with this idea that when disaster strikes, you get a two for one deal with Donald Trump. You get the threat itself, but you also have the threat of the president who is incapable of dealing with those situations.

CAMEROTA: You know, Miles, on a different topic, the president bragged recently in an interview that he had recently taken a cognitive test, and that he was able to say person, woman, man, camera, TV.

BERMAN: Good job.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. I don't even know if that was right repeatedly. Did you see any in the White House and people think it was cognitive decline or did people worry about his cognition?

TAYLOR: Yes, and it's easy to make light of this. You know, the internet is flooded with memes of really funny instances of Donald Trump showing less than -- less than great mental acuity. But this was discussed often. This was discussed daily among the president's senior advisors and the cabinet. People literally didn't feel like he was up to the job.

And I don't blame someone who is watching me right now from thinking, this guy is selling out and he's trying to cash in, and so he's going to trash the president. I am telling you with every fiber of my being that some of the president's closest advisors did not think he had the mental acuity to do the actual job.

We would go in there -- again in meetings, the scariest ones being in the situation room, and those are usually ones where I can't give you the details about what we were talking about, they'd be classified. But you would sit there, trying to keep your jaw from hitting the floor because you're trying to present the president sensitive, threatened intelligence and information that he needs to consider, and he can't keep his mind on it. He can't focus and he fidgets and he gets confused.

But this is the guy that we're thinking, you know, needs to protect our country in an emergency, and he can barely focus on what's in front of him, and rarely would read the piece of paper in front of them.

I hardly ever saw Donald Trump read a document he was handed. But he did love pictures. He loved pictures, and there were many occasions where we had to go see the president and we figured out that the best way to convince him of something was to get a really good graphic of it. I can't -- I can't believe I'm saying that either, but this is the truth.

This is what I witnessed, this is what many people witnessed, and I hope others will overcome that fear about what might happen in their personal lives if they speak out against the president. It's the time to do it. It's right. And it's the only way we're going to have a big American comeback is if we prevent a second Donald Trump term.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my God, Miles, oh, my God. I mean, we've heard this whispered about, but nobody has spelled it out that clearly that people -- that his top advisors daily worry about the mental acuity and that he can't absorb the important information about national security. I mean, we hear things like that from time-to-time, but that is putting a very fine point --

BERMAN: Well, where are they, Miles, then? I mean, if you're that upset or that worried about the president's mental acuity and the country is where it is, where are these people now? Will we hear from them in the next two months?

TAYLOR: If I can give the president credit for anything, it's that he has been extraordinarily effective at instilling fear among the people around him and people in the Republican Party. I talk frequently with senators, congressmen that I used to work with on Capitol Hill off line, they are afraid about what happens in their lives and in their careers when they speak out.

That said, I know you guys have heard me tease a little bit that there will be some other people who come out, hopefully some of them are names that Americans have heard. Others are names that Americans have never heard, but they are people who served at high levels in the Trump administration, who are getting ready to provide testimonials about how his demeanor and his behavior directly affected national security.

This is not a minority sentiment, this is a widespread sentiment. But people are afraid. So look, we've got to reassert that this is the United States of America. People should exercise their First Amendment rights and more than anything, the voters of this country need people who served in the Trump administration to exercise their First Amendment rights and exercise them aggressively.

So, look, I'm working behind the scenes as much as I can to try to get some of those folks to come out. You've seen a few. John Bolton came out pretty strong, everywhere from Anthony Scaramucci to you know, Bolton and Jim Mattis; former Secretary of Defense, but hopefully we'll see more in the lead up to November and stay tuned.