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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Biden Calls for America to "Overcome This Season of Darkness"; CDC Chief Says Deaths Could Start to Fall Next Week; Conflicting Reports on Poisoning in Russia; NBA Commissioner Says Next Season Could Be Delayed. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 21, 2020 - 05:00   ET

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


[05:00:29]

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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And make no mistake: united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A hopeful message in an anxious time. How Joe Biden made his pitch to reclaim the soul of a nation.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Laura Jarrett. It's Friday, August 21st. Happy Friday. It's 5:00 a.m. here in New York, 74 days to the election.

Last night, a Democratic acceptance speech half a century in the making.

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BIDEN: So, it's with great honor and humility, I accept this nomination of president of the United States of America.

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JARRETT: Joe Biden's rhetorical themes of darkness and light trying to draw a clear contrast to President Trump, without explicitly focusing on the man he wants to replace. Biden did, however, take direct aim at the president's failures when it comes to coronavirus and the broader implications.

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BIDEN: The president keeps telling us the virus is going to disappear. He keeps waiting for a miracle. Well, I have news for him. No miracle is coming.

And after all this time, the president still does not have a plan. Well, I do. I have a national mandate to wear masks. Not as a burden, but as a patriotic duty to protect one another.

In short, we'll do what we should have done from the very beginning. Our current president's failed in his most basic duty to the nation. He's failed to protect us. He's failed to protect America. And my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable.

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ROMANS: An engaging speech urging the U.S. to return to its global leadership role, helping dispel a major GOP talking point that Biden has lost a step. Four years after President Trump called for what he called American carnage, Joe Biden is calling for an end to American darkness.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more from Wilmington.

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JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, the Democratic National Convention now in the books, 74 days until Election Day. Joe Biden accepting the Democratic nomination for president, delivering indeed the most important speech of his long life in politics. He implored Americans to choose hope over fear. It was a blistering assessment of President Trump's leadership on coronavirus, of his stewardship of America's place in the world. But it was also filled with optimism.

But, first, of course, he did focus directly against the man he is trying to defeat. President Trump.

BIDEN: He's failed to protect us. He's failed to protect America. If he is given four more years, he'll be what he has been for the last four years, the president takes no responsibility, refuses to lead, blames others, cozies up to dictators and fans the flames of hate and division.

He'll wake up every day believing the job is all about him, never about you. Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot, decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation, what we stand for and most importantly, who we want to be, that's all on the ballot.

ZELENY: But the former vice president also urged optimism. He talked about the possibilities ahead for America and suggested his presidency would be a return to normalcy here in America. He struck optimistic tones particularly at the end of his address.

BIDEN: Love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. Light is more powerful than dark. This is our moment. This is our mission.

Now, history may be able to say that the end of the chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love as hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation. And this is a battle we will win and we'll do it together. I promise you. ZELENY: Now, the convention here in Wilmington ended with fireworks,

literally, as the former vice president and his wife Jill and his running mate Kamala Harris and her husband Doug stepped out of this convention hall and watched the fireworks above them here in Wilmington.

It was a crowd honking their horns, waving American flags in the air. It was a set up of the drive-in movie theater, if you will.

[05:05:01]

In fact, the Biden campaign organized several of these across the country. No question the Biden campaign knows it has a lot of work to do. They have an uncertain sense of what the campaign ahead will be like. Particularly as the Republican convention begins next week in Washington.

But there is a sense of confidence inside the Biden campaign at how this virtual convention was pulled off. So, going forward here into the next chapter, Joe Biden is not getting on a bus, he is not getting on a plane or train on boat as many Democratic nominees have in years past.

He is going home to Wilmington. He'll be doing events virtually and interviews, of course. But the next weeks of the campaign are a bit uncertain because of the pandemic. The Biden campaign now believes that plays to their advantage -- Christine and Laura.

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JARRETT: Jeff Zeleny, thank you for that.

The head of the CDC expects the coronavirus death rate to start dropping in part of the U.S. by next week. Dr. Robert Redfield says people have been doing more to control the virus.

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DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: These interventions are going to have a lag. That lag is going to be three or four weeks. You and I are going to see the cases continue to drop and hopefully this week and next week, you're going to start seeing the death rate really start to drop again.

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JARRETT: Another 1,000 American lives were lost Thursday. The average daily death toll has stayed above 1,000 for almost a month now. At that rate, six people have died since the start of the program.

But the seven-day average of cases has been falling, and it's not been this low since July 2nd, down more than 30 percent in a month. But another key metric, positive tests, well, that still up week to week in 34 states, even as testing declines in 17 states, leaving some people ignorant that they have the virus in the first place with no reason to isolate, Christine. ROMANS: At least 19 states are reporting coronavirus cases at

colleges and universities, and it doesn't even include cases at K-12 schools. Video obtained by CNN appears to show students gathered at Penn State campus on Wednesday.

The school's president publicly asking students, do you want to be the person responsible for sending everyone home?

Meanwhile, the White House formally declaring teachers as essential workers. It's part of an aggressive push to encourage schools to reopen for in-person learning. Now, really important here, that designation does not come with any mandates, but still calls on teachers to return to the classroom even after potential COVID exposure.

JARRETT: President Trump's postmaster general is going to be in the hot seat. Louis DeJoy testifies before the Senate later today. His aggressive new strategies have upended the U.S. postal service as it heads into one of the most consequential moments of its history, the vote by mail election of 2020.

DeJoy's administration has by his own admission slowed delivery and removed high speed letter sorters and reduced post office hours across several states and cut overtime and removed the iconic blue letter collection boxes.

ROMANS: CNN has video of the equipment in Michigan, Florida and other states being dismantled, and put in dumpsters and otherwise disposed of in the wake of what DeJoy is calling a restructuring. The agency's inspector general is now reviewing the policy changes.

DeJoy has now suspended his changes until after the election, but it looks like the damage may already be done. A new email obtained by CNN shows managers being told not to reconnect the sorting machines which handled envelopes, including ballots heading to voters.

JARRETT: And question for him today is why not?

Slow downs at the Postal Service could be devastating for small businesses nationwide. The Postal Service is the most used carrier for businesses with fewer than five employees. They, of course, take advantage of lower shipping rates, especially in rural areas where other carriers won't deliver. Small business struggling to stay afloat during this pandemic have also increased their online orders. Delivery delays threaten to choke off this growing part of the business.

ROMANS: It's a real problem for American business at the moment.

All right. Low demand and expiring stimulus forcing changes for American Airlines. Service to 15 cities is suspended starting on October 7th. These stoppages include airports in smaller cities among the places hit hardest by the pandemic.

Now, if airlines stop serving certain year areas altogether, it could lead to air travel deserts to make it more difficult for those cities to bring their economies back to life. American had been blocked from cutting off service to entire markets. It was a condition of accepting funding from the CARES Act. But that requirement expires this fall. Stimulus expiring.

American said the cuts are not permanent. The airlines told 25,000 workers they may be furloughed starting October 1st. Earlier this week, Southwest announced it was dialing back the fall schedule, and Delta said it is keeping its middle seat open until January 6th. One silver lining, according to some experts, the chances of catches COVID-19 on a flight are relatively slim. There are very few documented cases of in-flight transmission.

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JARRETT: All right. A Russian hospital says no poison was found in the blood of a Putin critic. But his team says refusing to let him leave is a direct threat to his life.

CNN will separate fact from fiction live from Moscow.

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JARRETT: Some very conflicting information coming out this morning in Moscow. A Russian hospital says no poison was found in the body of the critic of Vladimir Putin, but Alexei Navalny and his still team claims a deadly substance was found and they want him out of Russia. But at the moment, it appears he won't be going anywhere soon.

CNN's Matthew Chance is live for us in Moscow.

Matthew, why won't they let him do?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Laura, the doctors in Siberia who are treating Alexei Navalny, Russia's most spoken Kremlin critic, remember, are saying is that he is in a too unstable situation at the moment medically to be moved, even though there's a medivac plane that's been sent from Germany and he's on the tarmac in Omsk, that city in Siberia, where he's being treated, ready to fly him to clinic in Germany where the Navalny team says he'll be getting much better treatment than could be provided for him in Siberia.

The fact he is not being allowed out at this stage is a direct threat to the health of Alexei Navalny. Within the past few minutes, the doctors who are sort of overseeing his treatment in Siberia say they do not believe Alexei Navalny has been poisoned. They carried out several tests on him, they say, and they haven't detect the any toxin in his body.

What they haven't made public is what they believe the cause of his sudden and acute illness woes on that aircraft which was forced to make a forced landing in Omsk. You hear the screams that Navalny was making as he was evacuated by medics, by stretcher into an ambulance and taken to that hospital.

What the team of Navalny, his lawyers, his family, his assistants, his allies, are saying right now is that, look, they believe that one of the reasons that the delay has been made in preventing him from getting out of the country perhaps is because, you know, they want the poison that they believe is inside him to flood out of the system. That may be one thing they speculated could be a reason.

And Alexei Navalny's wife has said she has been told by police that they found a highly toxic substance in her husband that could be a danger to those around him as well. Obviously, the doctors say that's not something they confirmed. As far as they are concerned, Alexei Navalny, still unconscious and in intensive care in Siberia, has not been poisoned.

JARRETT: A lot of questions here that need to be answered. Matthew, thank you for staying on top of this one for us.

ROMANS: All right. Dramatic moments for President Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, pleading not guilty after being indicted on federal fraud charges. He was picked up on a yacht off the coast of Connecticut. Bannon and three others are accused of defrauding donors as part of this fundraising campaign, a private campaign to build the border wall. It raked in over $25 million.

He was released on a $5 million bond. After the court appearance, Bannon called the case a fiasco of people who want to build the wall. Bannon joins a long list of senior Trump aides who had either been charged or convicted of crimes.

All right. The Subway Series derailed for now. Two members of the Mets organization tested positive for coronavirus.

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ROMANS: A college football quarterback announcing he will not play this season after he was diagnosed with a heart condition after having COVID-19.

Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report".

Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, good morning, Christine.

You know, one reason why the Big Ten and PAC-12 say they would not be playing football this fall is because of all the unknown still surrounding COVID-19. The heart condition myocarditis which can develop after having COVID-19, the infection, it is one of the concerns for young athletes.

And Georgia State quarterback Mikele Colasurdo in a post on Twitter announcing he's not going to be playing the upcoming season due to a heart condition that developed after he had COVID-19 the offseason.

Now, Colasurdo did not specify which condition he had. He said ultimately it was the procedures and tests that allowed the doctors to find this condition and keep him safe. Colasurdo added he's looking forward to playing in the 2021 season. Georgia State plays in the Sun Belt Conference which is planning to play this fall.

All right. Two members of the New York Mets organization have tested positive for COVID-19, forcing last night's game against the Marlins and tonight's match up against the Yankees to be postponed. The team flew back to New York last night with recommended safety precautions in place. The two members who tested positive will remain in Miami along with those determined to be in close contact with them.

The Mets are the tenth team with the coronavirus postponement. One- third of the teams in baseball have had a game pushed back.

All right. In the NFL, Washington football team coach Ron Rivera revealing he has cancer. The team says the cancer is in a lymph node and was detected from a self care check. The team also says that the cancer is in an early stage and is considered very treatable and curable.

Rivera told ESPN he was stunned and angry because he feels like he's in the best of health. The 58-year-old says he's going to continue to coach even as he receives treatment, but we'll have a plan B in place. Rivera tweeting last night: Stephanie, Christopher, Courtney and I thank you all for your love and support.

All right. While the NBA's Orlando bubble has been a great success, Commissioner Adam Silver will likely delay the start of next season so the teams can play at home.

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ADAM SILVER, NBA COMMISSIONER: December 1st, now we're working through this season, is feeling a little bit early to me. I think our number one goal is to get fans back in our arenas. My sense is and working with the players association, if we push back even a little longer and increase the likelihood of having fans in arenas. That's what we would -- we would be targeting.

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SCHOLES: All right. Finally, Lakers fans have been waiting for four eight years, a win in the playoffs. Anthony Davis led the Lakers with 29 points in a 111-88 blowout over the Blazers in game two to even that series. LeBron scoring just ten points in that game.

You wouldn't have thought Lakers will get a win in the playoffs with LeBron scoring ten points, but they did to open that series.

And, hey, Laura, the draft lottery was last night. The Minnesota Timberwolves, the big winner, they're going to get the first pick in the draft, followed by the Golden State Warriors and then the Charlotte Hornets. New York Knicks, still snake bitten, no luck for them.

JARRETT: No luck for them.

SCHOLES: They got the eighth pick.

JARRETT: All right. Andy, nice to see you this morning. Have a great weekend.

SCHOLES: All right.

JARRETT: Thanks so much.

All right. Still ahead for you, Joe Biden striking an optimistic note to counter a dark time. He left the biggest zingers to someone else though.

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JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS, ACTRESS: Joe Biden goes to church so regularly that he doesn't even need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there.

Text vote to 30330, 30330 -- that would be the president's golf score if he didn't cheat. 30330, it's actually not that hard to remember. Watch. Person, woman, man, camera, TV, 30330. Anyone can do it.

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