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Average Daily Cases Fall Nearly 21 Percent, Deaths Down Eight Percent; GOP Candidate Spread Conspiracies About Charlottesville, Pizzagate; GOP Paints Alternative Reality Of Trump's Record, Policies. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 25, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:02]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Stay with us. We're continuing the coverage of that. And thanks for joining us today. See you back here this time tomorrow. Anderson Cooper picks up our coverage right now. Have a good day.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: I'm Anderson Cooper. I want to welcome viewers here in the U.S. and around the world.

More encouraging signs in the nation's fight against the coronavirus. Over the last two weeks, the average number of daily new cases have tumbled nearly 21 percent while deaths have fallen 8 percent. Three times as many states are now holding steady or decreasing their case counts.

But as much of the nation experiencing a decline, signs that the uneven response by states to the pandemic is leading to new hotspots. The Midwest seeing a 5 percent jump, one expert telling CNN that people forgot this was a pandemic because the region wasn't hit as hard initially as New York or some parts of the south.

South Dakota reporting its highest seven-day average for new daily cases, a stunning 53 percent surge from the prior week. Health officials announcing recently that several new cases linked to that massive bike rally there earlier this month.

And in Kansas, the state has added nearly 4,000 cases in just one week for the first time. The governor says each county in the state now has at least one positive COVID case.

And as more U.S. schools try to strike a balance between keeping children safe and reopening, a new study is offering insight into how to track infections. Our Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, has details. Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, there's been a lot of questions asked, how many children are out there in the United States who don't look like they have COVID, who look perfectly fine but actually are infected?

So, some researchers in San Francisco did a very smart thing. They looked at children who were at children's hospitals for other reasons, for surgeries, for whatever, but not for COVID. They seem perfectly fine and they tested them for COVID and then looked to the results.

So let's take a look at the numbers that they came up with. So, across in hospitals in various parts of the country, tested more than 33,000 children. Again, these are children who did not have signs of COVID. It turned out that 250, out of that group of children, turned out to have COVID.

Now, this is the part where there are some lessons learned is that the number of children varied greatly by community. Some hospitals had no children with COVID. Some hospitals, 2 percent of the children who didn't have symptoms who looked fine, 2 percent of them actually did have COVID. So that tells you that things are different community to community and so that means that different communities need to think about things like school re-openings differently. Anderson?

COOPER: Dr. Fauci is kind of pulling back the curtain on what it is like to work still on the White House coronavirus task force given that the president no longer interested in what he has to say or have confidence in him. He is talking as part of a new The Washington Post piece on Vice President Pence. What is he saying?

COHEN: It is interesting. He called himself -- Fauci called himself like the skunk at a picnic. In other words, I think what we are supposed to take is the unwelcomed visitor who is bringing bad news. He did have kind words for the vice president, said that he is a decent man and that he is very smart.

He also said that he's an optimist but that the vice president's optimism never stopped the vice president from allowing Fauci to come in and basically stink up the room where the president was, in other words, allow Fauci to come in and give the president bad news. So that is what Fauci is saying.

COOPER: Interesting. Elizabeth Cohen, skunk in a picnic, quite a visual. Elizabeth, thanks.

COHEN: Right.

COOPER: Colleges and universities are cracking down on student gatherings on and off campus after seeing a rise in coronavirus cases. The hope of in-person learning is quickly fading as outbreaks for some schools to shift back to online classes. Our Bianna Golodryga is tracking the rising number of cases.

So, what are you finding?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Anderson, it is a game of whack-a-mole. They are rising throughout the country on college campuses. And let's start at the University of Alabama system, where over 500 cases have been reported since classes started. Get this, just last Wednesday, they've seen over 500 new cases.

So what are they doing? Not only is the school system focused on this now, the city of Tuscaloosa is actually stepping in as well. The mayor there is saying that because of this rise and because this is a joint project to make sure that everyone in that community is healthy they are closing down bars for two weeks and actually limiting alcohol sales in restaurants. So that's a creative step that's being taken by local officials, maybe other cities will do the same for college towns.

If you go to other colleges across the country as well, the University of Missouri has 159 active student cases. And then let's go to UNC Chapel Hill. You'll remember, they had over 400 cases reported last week when they decided to close in-person classes and shut that down. Well, they -- the website now has reported a positivity rate of 31 percent, just on that one campus.

And as you mentioned in the introduction, a lot of these schools are cracking down and they are instituting disciplinary actions against students specifically and fraternities.

[13:05:03]

The University of Kansas issued disciplinary action against two fraternities on campus there. And Ohio State University suspended 228 students for attending off-campus parties and group gatherings with over ten people.

So this is clearly a big step that colleges are taking. It's a risky bet to bring students back to campus. And they are saying that they -- no one is off limits for being suspended and they have got to follow the rules, Anderson, to stay healthy.

COOPER: Yes, such a complex situation. Bianna Golodryga, I appreciate it. Thank you.

More protests erupt overnight in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a police shot an unarmed black man seven times in the back in front of his children. Protesters faced offer with riot police and the National Guard outside the county courthouse.

As the night went on, demonstrators set fires to multiple buildings and city vehicles. 29-year-old Jacob Blake survived the shooting. We're now learning he is paralyzed.

Sara Sidner, our CNN National Correspondent, is on the scene in Kenosha, spoke with Blake's father about his son's condition. Sara, what did his father say?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: His father said that, right now, they have learned that he is paralyzed from the waist down. What doctors do not yet know is this is something that's going to be permanent or whether or not this may subside and he may get more movement back in the lower extremities.

But the family and Jacob Blake having to deal with this thought that his life is forever changed, indeed, if he is paralyzed for life, waiting to get more details on that as the day goes by. He is still in intensive care in the hospital.

We also heard from his uncle who talked about Jacob Blake and said that he was a wrestler, he was a strong guy, somebody who he said if anybody could make it, he could. And the entire family really shocked when you look at this video that they still have Jacob Blake with them, that he has survived this.

There has been a reaction, of course, in this community. We have seen people peacefully protesting during the day and then as night comes, you see people start being destructive and clashes between police and protesters, lots of tear gas overnight as well as we watched several buildings go up in flames.

The family has been very adamant and very pointed. They believe in peaceful protest. They are honored that people have come out in Jacob Blake's name but they do not want to see anymore destruction, they do not want to see any violence at all, not in his name. And so they are very clear in saying that.

We are also hoping to hear from the family and their attorney, who is expected to be out here in the next couple of hours to give us an update on Jacob Blake's condition and how they are going to proceed.

What we have not heard much at all is from the investigators. We haven't heard anything from the state of Wisconsin Department of Justice, who has taken over the investigation into the shooting. We have gotten no real additional details from police here about what happened leading up to the shooting.

What we have heard is from the person who took that viral video and who says that there was a skirmish between police and Jacob Blake, there was some sort of a tussle that he was tased by police before you see this video of him going around the van where his three children were inside and that they -- at some point, police yelled knife, knife, knife. But we have gotten no further details from any agency about that.

What we know is what wee on the video, just like everyone else, that he was shot seven times in the back. Anderson?

COOPER: Sara Sidner, thankyou. And, Sara, I interviewed the governor of Wisconsin yesterday on my digital show on Full Circle. He was saying, look, they're not going to be able to necessarily put out information given it's an ongoing investigation, you know, that it may be several days before they're able to do that. But those details that you just said about the tasing, that's the first time I've heard of that. We didn't know that yesterday, I think, or at least I hadn't heard it yesterday.

So we know that there was a domestic dispute call is what we're told the police were responding to. Do we know the details of that?

SIDNER: So that is the problem. One thing is that the Kenosha Police Department does not have body-worn cameras. So we may never be able to see for ourselves and the public not be able to see for themselves exactly what happened on camera.

We've heard some stories from witnesses who say that there was a domestic dispute between two young ladies and that he intervened, Jacob Blake, intervened in that at some point. That is one thing that we're hearing from witnesses. But we haven't been able to corroborate that, for example, with police.

And as you mentioned, the investigation still ongoing, and so we're not getting details as to the lead-up of what happened.

[13:10:05]

And, you know, we are now going into two, two-and-a-half days in. And we haven't heard any more details. But we did hear that he somehow intervened in between two young ladies who were having a dispute.

We do not know how and why police came to try and arrest him and how this all ended up in such a shooting where he was shot in the back. We just don't know all of those details just yet just from what some of the witnesses have been telling us, Anderson.

COOPER: Sara Sidner, I appreciate it. Thanks very much.

Just in, new CNN reporting on the QAnon supporter who's closer to Congress, including the conspiracy theories that she's peddled in the past.

Plus, Republicans paint an alternative reality about the president's policies and record at their convention. Former FBI Director James Comey joins me live to respond.

And a hurricane now charging toward Louisiana and Texas as the region prepares for its second storm in two days.

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[13:15:00]

COOPER: New Georgia GOP Candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene was a QAnon supporter, but now we're learning about several conspiracy theories that she has spread in the past. CNN's K-File Senior Editor Andrew Kaczynski has uncovered a number of posts promoting her views. So, Andrew, what have you found.

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN K-FILE SENIOR EDITOR: So we found that before Greene was a congressional candidate, she was a correspondent for a website called American Truth Seekers. And this is a now defunct conservative blog.

And just to give you an idea of some of the stuff this blog posted, they posted that the 2018 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School was a massive false flag. That's the actual quote from an author that wasn't Greene. And in a couple posts that Greene wrote, she wrote that the conspiracy about pizzagate was real. And in another post said the Charlottesville white nationalist rally in 2017 was an inside job to further the agenda of the elites.

And, you know, sort of to like deconstruct this a little bit, pizzagate is this conspiracy theory that Democrats were running a pedophile ring out of a pizza restaurant and this Charlottesville thing, she was basically claiming that it was being done so that they could put the agenda of the elites and further it. And this is really, really nutty stuff. And --

COOPER: We should point out on the pizza parlor thing, a guy actually went to that pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., heavily armed to, you know, rescue children. There obviously were no children held there or this was just a complete fantasy and he was obviously arrested. He is serving, I believe, five years in prison for that. But, I mean, it could have been -- he could have shot up the place. I mean, it's -- this has actual real world implications.

KACZYNSKI: Well, that's the thing. This stuff has real life consequences. President Trump praised this person, as we saw in tweets, saying she is a future Republican star and a real winner. And what I was going to mention is she also had this Facebook post where she said that Nancy Pelosi was guilty of treason which she said was punishable for death. And that's almost the most normal thing that we are talking about here is that someone speculating the speaker of the House could be put to death. When that's the most normal thing that you're talking in terms of these conspiracy posts, it really shows you just how far gone this stuff is.

COOPER: Yes. She also said that -- she seemed to be a 9/11 truther, saying it wasn't plane that went into the Pentagon. Andrew Kaczynski, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

Joining me next to respond to this, former FBI Director James Comey.

Plus, Donald Trump Jr.'s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, calls herself a first generation American. Her mother is Puerto Rican and a new development, we'll have more on her speech last night.

There's also a new development in the scandal involving Jerry Falwell Jr. More on that ahead.

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[13:20:00]

COOPER: Republicans are gearing up for night two of their national convention. Tonight's headline speakers include First Lady Melania Trump, two of the president's children, Eric and Tiffany, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

If it's anything like last night's opener, their message is this. The economy is surging back, despite millions of job losses, the coronavirus is being beaten back despite the -- without much mention of the 177,000 dead Americans, and with the message is, without President Trump in charge, the nation will descend into chaos, violence and anarchy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICIA MCCLOSKEY, BRANDISHED GUNS AT ST. LOUIS PROTESTERS: They're not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): It's a horror film, really. They'll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, NATIONAL CHAIR, TRUMP VICTORY FINANCE COMMITTEE: They want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., making that case loud and clear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP JR., PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SON: This time, the other party is attacking the very principles on which our nation was founded, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the rule of law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: The rule of law. Donald Trump Jr. is saying that the Trump administration stands for the rule of law.

[13:25:02]

Of course, this is just days after the president's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is just the latest ex-Trump associate to find himself in big legal trouble.

I want to bring in former FBI Director James Comey. He's speaking at the convention on Founding Principles tonight as a group of conservatives who support Joe Biden. Director Comey, thanks for being with us.

Just Steve Bannon, his arrest recently charged with defrauding donors to a private group that was supposed to raise money to build a section of border wall, how serious do you think the charges are against him?

JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: Very serious, both because it includes fraud charge that looks on the face of the indictment to be incredibly detailed and strongly supported by text and emails but also, the amount of money stolen, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars is going to jack the punishment up. So he's looking at a very difficult road. And if I'm him and his lawyers, I think I'm going down.

COOPER: The president has been railing against mail-in voting. He's called it a disaster. He says it's an easy way for foreign countries to meddle in the election. I have spoken to a number of secretaries of state, including a Republican one from Washington, and said their mail-in voting systems are completely safe.

They have never seen any hint of foreign interference and though there is out of millions of votes cast as statistically insignificant number of people who try to vote twice or commit some sort of fraud and those people are prosecuted.

In your years working the FBI, have you ever seen widespread voter fraud, widespread mail-in voter fraud?

COMEY: Never. And I'm used to operating in an evidence-based world and so I've not seen any evidence nor ever heard anybody on Trump's team offering evidence. Instead they say, well, there's no evidence that there is not. There was no evidence that there's not an invisible asteroid is about to hit the earth. We shouldn't all run for the hills.

They haven't come forward with any evidence and I saw Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina saying mail-in voting is safe.

COOPER: The president also threatened to send law enforcement personnel or talked about sending law enforcement personnel to polling places in order to prevent voter fraud. A number of critics obviously jumped on that, saying it's reviving an old tactic of voter intimidation. Is that kind of thing -- first of all, does the president have the power to send local law enforcement to a place and is it needed?

COMEY: He has no power over state and local law enforcement. And so, they should and they will ignore a suggestion like that, which, as you said, does brings us back to some awful days when we used cops to try and scare people of color from voting. So they will and they should ignore him.

I suppose he could try something at the federal level. I can't imagine how a federal agency would abide such a direction. But, look, it sends a chill through all of us because that's a reminder of some days we in America thought we've left behind.

COOPER: Just last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was passing along information to a Russian intelligence officer in 2016. Do you think Robert -- I mean, their report was very damning and had -- was very focused. It was a bipartisan report. I'm wondering how you think it compares to the report put out by Robert Mueller? Did the Mueller team, you think, missed something?

COMEY: No. I think Mueller's mission was very different and much more narrow than the Senate Intelligence Committee. His job was to figure out so what evidence is there that you could bring into a court of law that would establish that a crime was committed beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury 12? That's a very high bar and it narrows the focus. He was a prosecutor.

What the Intelligence Committee was doing was looking at all the reliable information that was out there, whether or not it could be marched into a courtroom, and that's what led them to the stunning conclusion that the head of the president's campaign was a grave counterintelligence risk to the United States of America.

Folks ought to let that sink in and think about it the next time you hear our attorney general say there was nothing to investigate here or the president say it's just a hoax.

COOPER: We have learned more details about the FBI's application case for FISA warrant on Carter Page, a number of indiscrepancies, a number of inaccuracies. And now, there's an attorney who has, I guess, lied about what was on one of the applications, or lied about what his role was in this. Does that make you or should it make people look at this entire investigation differently?

It seems like given this was the most important thing or one of the most important things the FBI was working on, that there were so many inaccuracies and an attorney lied, that's not good.

[13:30:00]

COMEY: Yes, I agree. So, my first reaction is that's the result of Bill Barr's worldwide dragnet but I don't want to downplay it.