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FDA Issues Emergency Authorization for Convalescent Plasma to Treat COVID-19; RNC Kicks Off with Roll Call Vote; Kellyanne Conway Leaving White House to Focus on Family; Twitter flags President Trump's Tweet on Mail-In Voting; Postmaster General Set to Appear Before Oversight Committee Today. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 24, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:14]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto. The breaking news this morning, just one hour from now the fight for the truth, for the facts on mail-in voting, just weeks before a crucial election. Lots of unfounded claims out there. We will debunk them.

Postmaster general Louis DeJoy facing lawmaker questions on his changes to the post office, changes the critics say have crippled the service ahead of the November vote, an election that is expected to see a record number of mail-in ballots due to concerns over the pandemic. Today DeJoy testifies in front of the Democrat-led oversight committee. We will bring that hearing to you live.

Also next hour, the Republican National Convention officially kicks off in North Carolina. President Trump is expected to head to Charlotte in just minutes for today's roll call vote.

We are also following breaking news regarding COVID, a race for a vaccine as well as coronavirus treatments, plus accusations that the White House is playing politics in this pandemic. President Trump announcing that the FDA is giving emergency authorization for the use of convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus, that is plasma from patients who survived the infection.

But many health experts claim there is not yet enough data to support the use of the treatment. The "New York Times" is also reporting that the White House is looking to give approval for a vaccine before the end of crucial phase three clinical trials, those that include thousands of people to make sure the vaccine is safe, raising alarms this could be happening too fast and notably of course right before the election. The president said he wants a vaccine before the election.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now.

OK, so first let's talk about the emergency use of so-called convalescent plasma, plasma from people who have gotten through this. What do the studies show at this point? And based on normal medical practice, is there enough data to support the emergency authorization?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, what the studies show is that, while this might work, we don't know if it works, and what the studies really show is that the Trump administration is cherry-picking data to make this treatment look better than it might actually be.

I'm going to get nerdy on your, Jim. I'm going to be honest. I think you can take it. It's going to be nerdy. But here it is. They chose a death rate that looked at seven days out. After treating people, what happens seven days out. That's OK but why not look 30 days out? The seven-day death rate looks better. It's a better number so they chose that one when they should have chosen the 30-day one.

So let's take a look at what those actual numbers show. The Trump administration says 35 percent decreased death rate when you treat people with convalescent plasma earlier in their hospitalization versus later on. That's when you look at the seven-day death rate. When you look at the 30-day death rate, it's actually only 23.6 percent lower, so that is a difference. That was not pointed out by the Trump administration.

They chose the better number that is less reliable and this part is actually even more important. This death rate can be explained, this lower death rate can be explained by other factors. You don't need to be a medical genius to know that earlier treatment is always better. If these patients were getting plasma earlier, what else were they getting earlier? They were in the hospital earlier, so they were getting Remdesivir, steroids, other things earlier. That could explain why they had better survival, not necessarily the plasma -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It's why you do the science over time, right? I mean, it's why this is part of the process.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much.

COHEN: OK.

SCIUTTO: So joining me now to discuss this and a whole host of other issues, Dr. Richard Besser, the former acting director for the CDC.

Dr. Besser, always good to have you on. Help us cut through some of the politics as it mixes with Thank you for helping us cut through the politics as it mixes with the science. So let's start from a public health perspective. Is there enough data to support today the use of convalescent plasma?

DR. RICHARD BESSER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION: Well, Jim, you know, what really concerns me, last week this question was raised, and some of our smartest minds, Frances Collins, Tony Fauci, said no, there wasn't enough data to move forward with this emergency use authorization, and a big concern is that with the emergency use authorization in place, it will be harder to do the clinical trials.

There will be less plasma available, fewer patients available to do these studies. As Elizabeth was saying, these studies so far haven't compared people who got this product to people who didn't. It compared people who got it early to people who got it late. And so it doesn't answer the overall question, overall does this product improve survival or any other outcome?

[09:05:08]

And the big concern for me as a pediatrician, as a scientist, is the influence of politics on the approval process at FDA. You know, we want more drugs to come forward. We want vaccines to come forward but if we don't trust the process that they're truly going through all of the steps that are required to make sure that products are safe and effective, who is going to want to use a vaccine when and if it's available?

SCIUTTO: There you go. So you bring up the vaccine here because you've had the president pushing for something, anything, before the November election, and now there's talk according to the "New York Times" of fast-tracking the vaccine before the end of phase three clinical trials. Are you concerned that politics are disrupting the process there for the vaccine?

BESSER: Well, you know, as a pediatrician, I know that there's nothing that I do for my patients that has more impact on their health in a positive way than vaccinating them fully and on time, and the reason I have that confidence is that each of those vaccines has gone through thorough, safety and effectiveness training, so I can say exactly what the benefit of that vaccine is going to be in the community.

If this vaccine comes forward without all that work, I'm not going to have the confidence to tell my patients they should get this and we already know from survey data that people are skeptical. They're concerned that corners are being cut and that products are going to come to them that haven't had that thorough testing that we really need to be comfortable.

SCIUTTO: Yes. The CNN poll just last week showed that only 56 percent of Americans willing to take a vaccine if it existed, if it were to exist today. So what does that mean? I wonder, is it possible that the president is undercutting his own desire to have a broadly available vaccine by it seems putting his thumb on the scale here on the medicine behind it?

BESSER: Well, if we want a vaccine to really turn things around for this pandemic, a couple things have to be in place. One is you want it to be a very effective vaccine. You know, the measles vaccine is about 95 percent effective.

Flu vaccine is much lower than that, in some populations, it's less than 50 percent effective. So you want to have a COVID vaccine that's highly effective but you can have a vaccine that's 100 percent, but if people aren't going to take it and feel comfortable with it, you're not going to see the reduction in disease transmission.

So you need both. If there's a thought that politics is driving any of these decisions, you're not going to see people stepping up to get this vaccine and you're not going to see doctors and public health professionals recommending that they do so.

SCIUTTO: I mean, it's why we have rules and processes for doing this kind of stuff.

BESSER: Yes.

SCIUTTO: You wrote a recent op-ed for CNN where you talk about the effects of access to health care on this pandemic. I'm quoting you here, "The CDC, an agency I called home for 13 years, uniquely equipped to provide sound, science-based guidance for our nation during this public health emergency, but if millions of people can't follow this advice or have their basic medical needs met we will all continue to pay the price during this pandemic, and for however long we tolerate this broken and unjust system."

Tell us how we're seeing the holes in the U.S. health care system exposed in the midst of this pandemic.

BESSER: COVID makes it clear. I saw it clearly before this, because I work as a pediatrician in a community clinic, and I know that patients without insurance don't get the same care, the same quality of care or the timeliness of care, so here in COVID, at the start of this, there were 28 million people in America without health insurance, and the recommendation from CDC were if you think you had COVID symptoms to call your doctor, don't go to the ER, where you could pick up COVID.

If you didn't have health insurance, who are you going to call? What were you going to do? You were going to show up, you're going to show up late, and you're likely going to show up in communities where the quality of health care wasn't as good.

We need our politicians to come up with a system, and there are different approaches to this, so that everyone in this country has access to high quality, comprehensive affordable health care, not just for physical health but mental health. The mental health impacts of COVID are profound, from isolation, from anxiety, and there are tens of millions of people who don't have access to the mental health services that they need.

We have to solve this as a nation, and COVID is making it clear why there's such urgency around this.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Dr. Richard Besser, thanks so much for coming on, as always.

BESSER: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, we are just moments away from the official start of the Republican National Convention. Roll call will begin shortly in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's where we find CNN's Ryan Nobles.

Ryan, the president expected to make an appearance for that roll call but interestingly no party platform this year, just a sort of proclamation, you know, we'll do what the president wants for the next four years.

[09:10:06]

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. Another odd development in what's definitely been an odd year in terms of this 2020 campaign, and this is a much scaled down version of the Republican National Convention that we're seeing here in Charlotte today.

There's about 300 delegates that have started to make their way into the convention hall behind me. At some point during the morning, they will begin the roll call vote, where the states will cast their ballots in favor of President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, serving as the party's nominees for the fall election.

But you're right. A lot of that business of the convention that normally takes place during this time of the year where they haggle over the very specific policy goals of the party. All of that was shelved this time around. In fact the RNC last night producing a resolution that was unanimously agreed to where they essentially said because of coronavirus and because everybody just kind of agrees in the Republican Party, that Donald Trump is their standard bearer, that they were no longer going to adopt a platform but instead just show their full support For President Trump's second term agenda.

So peculiar for sure, but not uncommon, given all the different changes that have come up because of the coronavirus pandemic. Later tonight, Donald Trump, Jr. is the headline speaker for the Republican convention. Much of the activity will shift here from Charlotte to Washington, D.C., where we'll see a lot of these speeches take place, but Jim, you're right.

We are expecting the president and the vice president to arrive here in Charlotte later this afternoon, perhaps to deliver very short remarks thanking the delegates for nominating them again for the 2020 election in what can only be described as somewhat of an odd year to say the very least -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: No question. Ryan Nobles, good to have you there.

The 2020 Republican National Convention of course kicks off tonight with a line-up as we mentioned includes former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott, the president's son, Donald Trump, Jr., and others. We're going to bring you special live coverage all week long, starting tonight 7:00 Eastern time here on CNN.

Other news, White House counselor and fierce defender of the president, Kellyanne Conway, she has announced she is leaving the White House at the end of this month, just before an election, and her husband, George Conway, one of the president's most vocal critics notably, says that he as well is withdrawing from the Lincoln Project. That is a group of anti-Trump Republicans. They both say they need to focus on their family.

CNN's John Harwood joins us now with more on this surprise joint announcements.

John, what do we know? JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know is

that after an extended period of time when George Conway was fiercely -- has been fiercely going after President Trump, his mental fitness, his capacity to serve as president, obviously Kellyanne Conway has been just as fierce on the inside, you had their children drawn into this as well, a teenaged daughter who was been posting on TikTok her opposition to President Trump, and evidently, from the statement of Kellyanne Conway and George Conway, it became an untenable situation within the family and understandably they have made a decision to, as we get near the end of the campaign, and if the polls are right, it's likely to be the end of the Trump presidency, unless something dramatic changes. They've made a decision to try to focus on their family, and I think everyone can understand that and wish them well.

SCIUTTO: John Harwood, we know you'll follow it. Thanks so much.

Still to come this hour, we are closing in on election day. The president stoking fears about mail-in voting, something that he himself takes advantage of. Postmaster general Louis DeJoy is set to face lawmakers' questions in less than an hour. I'm going to speak with one of the congressmen -- Republicans who will be at that hearing, asking some of those questions.

Plus, two dangerous back-to-back storms are threatening the Gulf Coast. Right now experts say this has not happened in decades.

And protests in Wisconsin overnight after a black man was shot by police multiple times in the back, as the video shows. That man is now fighting for his life. We'll bring you the latest. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. Twitter has flagged a tweet from President Trump over the weekend about mail-in voting, saying that, that tweet has misleading claims that could discourage people from voting in November. That tweet pushed a number of statements without backing, including the claim that mail drop-boxes are a voter security disaster that make it possible for a person to vote multiple times. Just not the facts to back that up.

The tweets also casting doubt on who controls those ballot drop-boxes, even going so far as to say the boxes are not COVID sanitized. So, what are the facts? Of course, the president's claimed many times otherwise, but voting by mail rarely results in fraud, according to the vote at Home Institute, more than 250 million, you heard that right, million votes have been cast via mailed out ballots since 2000, just to put that in perspective.

The National Vote at Home Coalition reports Oregon sent out more than a 100 million mail-in ballots in that time, of those 100 million-plus ballots, the states documented only about a dozen cases of proven fraud, that is, do the math here, one of every 8.3 million ballots cast. In fact, we've noted on this broadcast, the President himself has

submitted his own absentee ballot in Florida. And while the president does try to create a distinction between absentee and mail-in voting, they are based on process and security, essentially the same subject.

In fact, in states across the country to several degrees of verification. We should note, 43 states run by Republicans and Democrats allow vote by mail or allow requests for such ballots. The president also suggests ballot drop-boxes make it possible to vote multiple times, and he asserts that somehow matters if those boxes are in Republican or Democratic areas.

[09:20:00]

Again, the facts, the boxes are specifically set up and designed to securely receive ballots. Experts say only election administrators handle and process ballots once they are submitted under federal law. Anyone who commits voter fraud could be fined up to $10,000 and spend up to five years in prison for each act of fraud.

And we should be clear that when those ballots are dropped there, they're subject to those same identification verification signatures, et cetera. The president is also turning to scare tactics, a concern claiming without evidence that mail drop-boxes could -- may not be COVID sanitized, but scientists have debunked that, noting that people are unlikely to catch the coronavirus in touching such a box.

So as President Trump tries to tell you that mail-in voting is not safe, that it isn't secure, remember that if you do it right, you follow the guidelines, it will be and if you need to cast a mail-in ballot to protect you and your family during this pandemic, and if you can, those are the facts and it's allowed by the law in states across the country.

In just over half an hour, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will be back in front of Congress, this time, he is testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee about recent changes to the U.S. Postal Service. I'm joined now by someone who will take part in today's hearing, he's Republican Congressman from Georgia as well as a member of the House Oversight Committee, Jody Hice. Congressman, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

REP. JODY HICE (R-GA): Glad to be with you, thank you.

SCIUTTO: So, I want to talk about the Post Office first, because you have called concerns about the Post Office's ability and resources to handle a surge in mail-in ballots in November as a conspiracy theory. I just want to quote what the president said on "Fox News" just a number of days ago.

He says that, "they, the Post Office need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. But if they don't get those two items" -- meaning, this funding that's being debated now, "that means you can't have universal mail-in voting because they're not equipped to have it." So you say it's a conspiracy theory, the president says without those

funds, the Post Office can't handle the surge. Who is right? Are you saying you disagree with the president?

HICE: No, the issue here is the accusation that the president is somehow trying to suppress the votes. That's simply not the case. That in itself is a conspiracy being created by the Democrats and we're going to see more of that, I believe, in the drama that take place in the hearing today.

SCIUTTO: But I'm talking specifically about the Post Office here because the Democrats are claiming that the changes by the Postmaster General have reduced the ability to handle an expected surge during a pandemic. The president has said in so many words there, that without the funding being debated, the Post Office won't have the resources to handle the surge. I'm just asking very simply, does the Post Office need those funds to handle the surge or not?

HICE: No, the Post Office right now has over $14 billion cash on hand. They have another $10 billion that the Treasury has set aside for a loan in case the funds are needed. But they do not even have access to that $10 billion because they have too much money on hand. And --

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: So the president is wrong? So, the president is wrong when he says -- is the president wrong when he says they need extra funding to handle it?

HICE: It's two different things -- there's two different things here. The Post Office for decades has been losing money, we know that. Right now, they have cash on hand because the pandemic has caused people to purchase through Amazon and different places, so there's more packaging being delivered than ever before. So right now, the Post Office has cash on hands.

Their overall business model is unsustainable. That is the issue where they're going to need cash, but they don't just simply need cash. They need reform, and that's what the Democrats are refusing to take place at this point and to reform the issue --

SCIUTTO: I'm just asking a simple question, does the Post Office need additional resources as the president says --

HICE: Not right now.

SCIUTTO: OK, so, you don't think -- so the president's wrong on that then --

HICE: Not right now, they don't. Right now, they have --

SCIUTTO: OK --

HICE: Fourteen billion dollars, as soon as this pandemic is over, they're going to need some more cash as they have an unsustainable business model which in itself needs drastic reform --

SCIUTTO: OK --

HICE: Which the Democrats are refusing to have.

SCIUTTO: All right, so we'll say the president is wrong on that. I want to ask you about mail-in voting because as you know, the president has claimed that with an increase in mail-in voting, this will be the most rigged election in history. Georgia, great state of Georgia where you're from, is one of 34 states that offers mail-in voting without an excuse. It's done so since 2005. Do you believe that policy needs to be reversed in Georgia?

HICE: It's two different things, you have on the one hand absentee voting which has been here for a long time. No one that I know of is opposed to absentee ballots. When a person is going to be out of the country --

SCIUTTO: What's the difference? They both are verified by a signature, et cetera --

HICE: No, there's an enormous difference -- no, there's an enormous difference. Absentee ballots are for an individual, we know who the individual is, they make the request for a ballot, the ballot is sent to that individual.

[09:25:00]

Universal mail-in ballots are totally opposite, and this is what the Democrats are pushing for, where ballots are sent to tens and tens and tens of millions of people even without any request --

SCIUTTO: In what circumstances do you know it's an application, not an actual ballot, you have to apply for it and go through --

HICE: No --

SCIUTTO: The same security than it would for mail-in voting --

HICE: Go back to the Heroes Act of 100 days ago, go back to the Heroes Act of 100 days ago, and you will see the Democrats had in that Act three specific issues. Number one, universal mail ballots sent out across the country to everyone. Number two, banning states from being able to have voter ID with where those ballots are going, who they're being sent to --

SCIUTTO: Well, let's set aside voter ID for a moment --

HICE: And thirdly --

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: I just want to ask you because you -- well, what evidence --

HICE: That is a disaster and ingredient for fraud. SCIUTTO: Well, I'll go through the actual definition of what ballot

harvesting is because I know that's a buzz word now. But let's set aside voter ID and ballot harvesting for a second. I want to get -- what do you say --

HICE: We can't set aside that. Those two issues are incredibly important --

SCIUTTO: I'll set aside because I have to deal with them one by one because each one has a different issue. But let's start with the issue of security of mail-in voting. What do you say to voters in Georgia who as I noted has -- people can have vote in by mail without an excuse -- and by the way, you were elected in elections that had this rule in place.

What do you say to people who are concerned about say, they have a pre-existing condition, they're older, they're concerned about going in to a voting polling station during this election, afraid that they might catch the virus. What do you say to them? Do you say go in under any circumstances?

HICE: No, absolutely, they use the absentee ballots. No, use absentee ballots. That's what they're there for. For individuals who in this case are afraid to go to the polls for whatever reason they're unable to, that's why we have absentee ballots. They can request those ballots --

SCIUTTO: But why does the president say in mail-in ballots --

HICE: In Georgia, they'll be mailed to them --

SCIUTTO: Are OK --

HICE: And it's fine, that's no problem.

SCIUTTO: Why does the president say mail-in ballots are OK in the state of Florida and Arizona run by Republicans, but not elsewhere? He doesn't --

HICE: No --

SCIUTTO: He doesn't make distinction there on absentee ballots --

HICE: No, absentee ballots are given in any state --

SCIUTTO: Why is it OK there and not elsewhere?

HICE: They're good. Absentee ballots, I believe the president would argue is fine. When a person requests a ballot because they can't go to the polls and that ballot is mailed to that individual, we know who that individual is, that's fine.

SCIUTTO: The president has said mail-in balloting is fine --

HICE: That is a drastic different issue from universal --

SCIUTTO: In Florida --

HICE: Mail-in ballots which is absolutely an ingredient for fraud and fraud will take place.

SCIUTTO: I'm just asking you because voters, they just want to know what the facts are, and voters have reasonable questions when the president says all mail-in voting is fraudulent, it's going to create the most fraudulent election, but it's OK in Florida and Arizona --

HICE: All universal mail-in voting has that potential. And there's a difference. Please make the distinction between universal mail-in ballots and absentee voting.

SCIUTTO: I do, I do know the difference --

HICE: It's two different things and you cannot lump them together.

SCIUTTO: Well, the truth is, they have the same -- many of the same security procedures. Let me just ask you this, then. What evidence do you have and when we cited for instance a state of Oregon that has done about 100 million ballots like this, and one in 8.3 million ballots had evidence of fraud, about a dozen over the course of 100 million ballots. What evidence do you have that there is an issue with mail-in voting when it's spread out over a larger part of the population? Can you cite some data --

HICE: No, again --

SCIUTTO: That says that's fraud, that, that has a greater incidence of fraud?

HICE: It's a legitimate question, and listen, it's again though two different issues we're talking about. Mail-in ballots versus absentee voting --

SCIUTTO: Where is the evidence? Tell me --

HICE: What the Democrats -- what the Democrats --

SCIUTTO: I know you're making a distinction there which is actually not --

HICE: Are pushing right now is something we've never had before --

SCIUTTO: Big a distinction as you're making, but what's the evidence that there's fraud?

HICE: OK, listen --

SCIUTTO: Can you cite any study?

HICE: What the Democrats are doing right now is something we have never had before. You look at what just happened in New York for example --

SCIUTTO: You can't give me an evidence of fraud -- HICE: Chairwoman Maloney, Chairwoman Maloney, listen to me,

Chairwoman Maloney just had six weeks, six weeks waiting to get results from her election because of the mail-in ballots that took place in her --

SCIUTTO: Well, the reason they took the time is they were taking the time to verify the ballots --

HICE: And there were over a thousand that were thrown out --

SCIUTTO: I'm asking if you have evidence of fraud, why can't you cite it?

HICE: There were thousands thrown out, and this is a -- this is just laying the groundwork for lawsuits. This is what the Democrats want, they want national confusion in the upcoming election. There will be absolute fraud. There will be lawsuits from this. This is exactly what the Democrats want --

SCIUTTO: And you're saying there will be absolute fraud and you're not giving --

HICE: This is what they're pushing.

SCIUTTO: You're not quoting a single statistic to back that claim. Can you -- did your staff --

HICE: Because it hasn't happened yet --

SCIUTTO: Prepare you with a stat to answer that question?

HICE: How do you have a claim for that which has not yet happened? We are going -- we are going to have a new pathway --

SCIUTTO: We've had it in this country for years. I'm excited that --

HICE: We have not had universal -- we have not had universal mail-in ballots. We have absentee ballots. And that so far has been relatively safe --

SCIUTTO: We've had many states do it by the tens of millions -- we've had many states do it by the tens of millions --

HICE: When we have universal mail-in ballots, we will have fraud.

SCIUTTO: Based on what? How do you know that?

HICE: Based on -- look --

SCIUTTO: They go by the same --

HICE: The fact is -- no --

SCIUTTO: They go by the same security procedures --

HICE: Here's how -- here's how I know. You ask me a question, let me answer it --

SCIUTTO: As absentee ballots do. You have to verify signature, you have to verify ID --

HICE: You ask me a question, let me answer it. Here's how I know we will have fraud. You asked me a question, I would appreciate the opportunity to answer it.

SCIUTTO: Absolutely.

HICE: We would have fraud --

SCIUTTO: How do you know?

HICE: Because of what the Democrats want. What they want, universal --

SCIUTTO: Will have fraud --

HICE: Mail without ballots, without any voter ID. We're going to have ballots mailed out to people who are deceased --

SCIUTTO: You still have to verify the signature --

HICE: People who have moved.