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New Day

Republicans Try to Rewrite History, Paint Dark Picture under Biden; FDA Chief Apologizes of Convalescent Plasma and Apologizes for Misrepresenting Therapy Data; Protests Turn Violent in Wisconsin after Police Shoot Black Man. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 25, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: In the United States and all around the world.

[07:00:02]

This is New Day.

And despite the message the Republicans said they wanted to convey, the first night of their national convention delivered a dark and distorted version of reality. They praised President Trump's handling of the coronavirus but made no mention of the 177,000 Americans who have died in just the past six months from it.

The speeches were delivered in an empty auditorium because of restrictions on mass gatherings. Many of the speeches were on tape, and most tried to paint a potential Biden administration as the end of democracy as we know it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICIA MCCLOSKEY, ST. LOUIS HOMEOWNER WHO POINTED GUNS AT 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.

DONALD TRUMP JR., SON OF PRESIDENT TRUMP: It's almost like this election is shaping up to be church, work and school versus rioting, looting and vandalism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: So this morning, the United States leads the world in coronavirus cases and deaths. Somehow that wasn't discussed overnight. There was a major development on that front. The FDA commissioner admitted that he mischaracterized the data about the effectiveness of convalescent plasma as a treatment for the virus.

Now, he still supports the use and says the data still backs it up. He just says he got it wrong when he presented this. What does this tell us about what we can trust in terms claims about a possible vaccine?

Also new this morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci is warning about the risks of rushing through the approval process for a vaccine, which the president insists could happen by Election Day. Meanwhile, this morning, more colleges are reporting coronavirus clusters as students return to class. UNC Chapel Hill has a positivity rate of over 30 percent.

Joining us now, CNN Political Analyst David Gregory and Maggie Haberman. Maggie is a White House Correspondent for The New York Times.

Maggie, I love The Times coverage. I'm going to he'd to you from Axios because it's in front of me this morning on how they described the condition last night.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I appreciate that.

BERMAN: They said that the convention provided an alternative narrative where the president masterfully deflected COVID, he's popular with black Americans, and Joe Biden is a menacing leftist. It's the idea of this revisionist history.

Now, I'm not saying it won't be effective, maybe it is. How do you assess how it landed last night?

HABERMAN: Look, it is clearly a minimum revisionist history, and that's the moment in terms (ph) -- certainly in terms of the coronavirus, it was exclusive history, right? I mean, they were not touching on it at all. The Republicans have known for many months that if the election is about the coronavirus, it's the top issue that people are voting on, that the president is in trouble. So it's an effort to try to focus attention elsewhere and to praise his response.

And there is a continued focus on his limited ban on travel from China that the president instituted that he -- at the end of the January that he's continually treated as a mission accomplished moment, as if that was all he had to do.

John, the thing I was most struck by last night were these personal testimonials about the president that were clearly designed to make particularly white suburbanites think that the president is not a racist. This was aimed at combating the president's own behavior in things he says, couching the racist and sexist things he said, quote, criticisms that he's not politically correct enough. It may be effective. We will know on Election Day.

But that's a lot about what last night was about. It was not an optimistic vision about the country, and certainly under Joe Biden, but it was a rosier version of Donald Trump than we usually hear.

CAMEROTA: We have one of those testimonials from -- it's Herschel Walker, John. I'll explain who he is.

BERMAN: He was my favorite football player. You loved him in the USFL. You were telling me all this stuff beforehand.

CAMEROTA: Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERSCHEL WALKER, FORMER NFL PLAYER: I watch him treat janitors, security guards and waiters the same way he would treat a VIP. He made them feel special because he knew they were.

It hurt my soul to hear the terrible names that people called Donald. The worst one is racist. I take it as a person insult that people would think I've had a 37 year friendship with a racist. People who think that don't know who they're talking about.

Growing up in the deep south, I've seen racism up close. I know what it is. And it isn't Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, David, Maggie felt that that was effective in a personal testimonial saying, I know who this man is. What did you find effective last night?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think Maggie hit on the most essential point which is who is he trying to persuade? Because so much of this was red meat for base supporters who are already on board, so who might be persuadable? A lot of suburban voters, not necessarily voters of color, but white suburban voters who are uncomfortable with Trump saying racist things and the reputation of his racism or manifestation of it, they want to be assuaged.

[07:05:05]

And so maybe those testimonials helped chip away at some of those negative feelings. Because I think the overall point was to say, look, America, you've got a choice. You either -- you believe that Donald Trump is incompetent and corrupt, or you think he's a protector, that he is what stands between you and a radical left in government raising your taxes and a cultural left that changes how you express yourself, what you're allowed to think, what's acceptable behavior.

That's, I think, the dichotomy that the Republicans want to create. It's not the optimistic future, it's let's focus on something else other than primarily the response to the pandemic.

BERMAN: Yes, it's interesting. I totally agree. I think that clearly was the target. And politics, in general, so often the target no matter what you're talking about, is what female suburban voters. That's where our elections have been to an extent so often before.

It almost requires though, Maggie, voters to unsee what they've seen for the last three-and-a-half years. And, remember, this is a president who is very visible. I mean, people -- he's right in people's faces every day for three-and-a-half years and the question is, will one night of testimonials change what people saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears?

HABERMAN: John, that's really the question and we talked about that last night on our New York Times coverage about will this basically be enough for people to have been viewing a different version of President Trump for three-and-a-half years?

the answer may be, for some people, it is. There might be people who either are not as tuned in to this every day or there might be people who are looking for rationalization so that they can vote for him. Look, the polling is really bad for Donald Trump, particularly in the suburbs.

There is every reason to believe that he is going to have a huge problem getting those voters back. But if this convention represents one of his last opportunities to try to get some voters back, you can see how last night was an effort to do that.

Again, whether it's going to be successful, I think, is a very open question. I didn't say it was effective, I said it could be effective. But that is what they were trying to do.

CAMEROTA: And -- go ahead, David.

GREGORY: I would just say, the other thing that's interesting to underline a little bit, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are two Republican figures who at least had a brush of disagreeing with President Trump. And yet, paradoxically, they were the ones who were highlighted on this night one when, normally, any voice of dissent against the president earns you a trip to complete quiet and solitude because you're shunned.

So I thought it was interesting that they were used rather effectively and they have at least had a brush of disagreeing with him or creating some separation from him.

BERMAN: I will say, Nikki Haley, both of those convention speeches could have happened at any convention which you could say for all the other speakers there.

HABERMAN: Absolutely.

BERMAN: But for Nikki Haley, what was notable, one of the key moments of her time as governor of South Carolina was the removal of the confederate flag. This is after the shooting at the M.E. church down there. And just listen to the language she used in her apparent refusal to state the words, confederate flag, out loud. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: After that horrific tragedy, we didn't turn against each other, we came together, black and white, Democrat and Republican. Together, we made the hard choices needed to heal and removed a divisive symbol peacefully and respectfully. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I don't believe in accidents in speeches, Maggie, and that was a pretty notable omission. And, clearly, you would think it was the president has defended the presence of the confederate flag in places.

HABERMAN: I don't think it was a coincidence, John. Like you, I think that there are these kinds of coincidences. I think that Nikki Haley is looking at a future for herself as a potential Republican nominee in the post-Trump world, which none of us know what it will look like. And she's something of a bridge to the old vestiges of the Republican Party.

I think that it was interesting, as you note, that she wouldn't say the words, confederate flag. And that is a mark that even if she is opening up some daylight with this president. There still is a place that she wasn't going to go because there was a line that he would see as some kind of transgression against him and I think that was it.

CAMEROTA: Okay. David, let's talk about Jerry Falwell Jr. Don Jr. brought up church, so let's talk about Jerry Falwell Jr.'s version of family values that he puts into practice, at which obviously I'm cool with whatever you want to do behind closed doors with a pool boy, I'm cool with that. But what I'm less cool is --

GREGORY: Thanks, by the way, for that clarification.

CAMEROTA: Okay, because I know you have a pool boy, number one. Number two, what I'm less cool with is the hypocrisy and sanctimony of telling other people what they can do in their private lives.

[07:10:04]

BERMAN: You want me to read it to you from the Liberty University the code of conduct?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: All right. Sexual relations outside of biblically ordained marriage between a natural born man and natural born woman are not permissible at Liberty University. In personal relationships, students are encouraged to know when to abide by common sense guidelines to avoid both the appearance of impropriety. Activities inconsistent with these standards and guidelines are violations of the online student honor code.

CAMEROTA: Does it say anything about a pool boy? No?

All right, well, David, here is my question. You've written a book on faith, and I think that it is mystifying to many Americans how the evangelicals stick with, you know, President Trump, Jerry Falwell Jr., et cetera, amid the hypocrisy and when they would tire of it.

GREGORY: Yes. I mean, look, I think this question has come up before and so-called values voters, evangelical Christians, other people of faith who have stuck with the president have obviously made the same kind of calculation that others have in the past, even about Reagan or plenty of strong Christian voters who didn't like that Ronald Reagan had been divorced. But they made a different calculation when it came to who they wanted to be a national leader and voted on other issues.

I mean, what is embarrassing about Falwell is that he was an early ally of President Trump. It just raises all the questions that have -- these allegations that have stuck to President Trump as well. But I think most of these voters look past this and look at Trump for things that they care about, abortion, judges, the fact that he has staked out ground where he says, look, I'm not going to judge you, you'll be accepted, so the cultural comments that he makes.

I think that's ultimately what wins the day that people are a lot -- make certain compromises, compartmentalize their feelings about Trump. How they react to somebody like Falwell is a different matter and Jerry Falwell seems to be in a pretty precarious position with regard to his staff at Liberty.

BERMAN: Yes, you could say that. David Gregory, I appreciate you being here, Maggie Haberman, you too. A really good discussion, I think, on pointing out what the convention has been directed and to whom it's been directed. I think it's important to know who the audience is here. So thanks very much for that.

Developing this hour, evacuations ordered for parts of the Gulf Coast as residents brace for a possibly major hurricane. Tropical Storm Laura is now forecasted rapidly intensified maybe to a category 3 storm before making landfall.

CNN's Martin Savidge live in New Orleans with the very latest there, where I imagine, Martin, people are getting ready.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are. Good morning, John. All eyes are laser-locked on Laura at this particular point, tropical storm, but as you say, predicted to become a hurricane, and not just a hurricane but a major hurricane.

And there are concerns that stretch all the way from New Orleans into Texas. Mandatory evacuations have already been ordered ahead of the storm in Texas. And, in fact, there are some concerns now for the city of Houston if that storm continues to move to the west, as some projections have said it could do. But also in New Orleans, they have to be ready as well.

The good news about Marco was the fact that it wasn't as bad as they feared and it got people in the right mindset here. It got people going out before the weekend shopping and getting their supplies and emergency food sources. And then on top of that, the city was able to make sure that its pumps on 99 are ready to go. They brought in emergency generators to operate the pumps if the power were ready to go down. They've cleared the catch basins. The city is ready to drain. You cannot be prepared enough when it comes to a Cat 3 storm.

Remember in the middle of the city, you've got the collapsed portion of the Hard Rock Hotel. That is still considered to be very unstable and there are strong concerns by the mayor. the fire department is monitoring that situation. Of course, you've got COVID. That was very bad in Louisiana. It's gotten better. They've suspend testing for the next few days. If there are evacuations, well, you can imagine what crowding people into shelters will be even with social distancing.

And then lastly, I'll point out, this weekend, the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it killed 1,800 people and changed life forever in this part of the Gulf Coast. All of that weighing on the minds of people as they look forward to what Laura may bring. John?

BERMAN: And I know, Martin, you know that very well having spent so much time down there over the last 15 years covering the recovery from Katrina now as they prepare for another storm to hit. Thanks so much for being there for us.

A stunning reversal this morning from the commissioner of the FDA conceding he misrepresented data about the use of convalescent plasma as a treatment for coronavirus. We're going to discuss the latest on the pandemic with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:15:00]

CAMEROTA: New this morning, the FDA commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, denying that his agency was pressured to authorize the use of convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus and he apologized for misrepresenting the data used to backup that decision.

Joining us now is CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. So, Sanjay, great to see you. Have you talked to Dr. Hahn about this?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, you know, I spent some of the evening yesterday sort of doing the math, really going through these studies, trying to figure out what he was talking about. And some of it still did not make sense so we -- I called him. He and I talked for a while, really going through these numbers. And shortly after that, he put out this tweet, these series of tweets basically clarifying what he said.

And I think this is important, because I think what people heard at the press conference on Sunday was, look, if 100 people take this treatment, 35 people would survive that otherwise wouldn't have survived. That's what people were sort of left with. And that certainly sounds pretty impressive. But that's not really what the study showed at all, and I think that's what Dr. Hahn was sort of apologizing about. He misrepresented that data.

[07:20:01]

Let me just show you this quickly. I know it's a lot of math for the morning but let me show you this because I think it's important. I really spent a lot of time look at this Mayo Clinic study yesterday. We can show you here, 35,000 people roughly were studied. This was new data that was presented to the FDA, they say, late Friday night and into Saturday. So this is what they were using for that Sunday press conference. But here is what it shows. 35,000 people were studied. If you got the high dose of the convalescent serum, there was 8.9 percent mortality after a week, 8.9 percent of people died, versus the low dose this issue 0.7 percent. So instead of saying 35 more people would survive after a week, it would be closer to 5 people may survive after a week.

Now, neither one of those groups of people were compared to a placebo, compared to a group of people who did not receive the convalescent serum at all. So we don't know is this really the convalescent serum, is it something else? Let me show you. When we looked at the data a little bit more closely, we found people in these groups were also getting other medications.

They were getting steroids. They were getting remdesivir. So, close to half the people were getting steroids. So, was it the steroids? Was it the convalescent serum? You don't know. That's why controlled randomized trials are necessary. And those haven't been done yet, and think that's been the criticism.

BERMAN: Look, and think we're all perfectly willing to be hopeful about convalescent plasma, but I honestly this error is a big deal. I mean, Dr. Jha told us yesterday he would have failed a first year medical student who presented a paper with that. This is basic, basic math and it misrepresents the effectiveness that they're describing and it draws questions as to what we can trust if and when they tell us a vaccine safe.

Sanjay, I know there's other stuff you wanted to discuss as well. Mainly, there was this headline that caught a lot of people's attention from Hong Kong suggesting they had the first discoverable known case of someone being infected a second time. That's the headline that grabbed people's attention but there's a lot going on underneath it. Explain.

GUPTA: Yes. So this is something interesting. We've been talking about on your program for some time. Look, are people going to start becoming re-infected? We haven't seen really evidence of that. There was some anecdotal reports in South Korea, initially. But this is now the first sort of confirmed re-infection. So, now, we know it can happen.

We thought it might be able to happen because it does -- we do see other coronaviruses, the common cold viruses, for example, people do become re-infected with those types of viruses. But I want to show you something important. I think that this is not entirely frightening news here. This is sort of what you'd expect.

If we look at the graph and see sort of what happened, the person was first time exposed to this virus and they were naive. This is the top line here. And then they developed, you know, these symptoms, these mild symptoms of cough and fever and things like that. And then four- and-a-half months later, they get exposed again and the body is producing these antibodies.

And while the person is infected by a test, they really have no symptoms at that point. The only reason they were caught is because they were traveling and, as part of that travel, had to be screened again, got tested again, and that's how they found this.

Now, out of the, you know, close to 23, 24 million people around the world that have been infected, confirmed infections, this is the first time we've had a confirmed re-infection. It is quite possible that there are many more re-infections out there. They just don't get caught because they're not having symptoms, why bother getting tested?

The two critical questions, are they symptomatic? Are they actually getting sick from this? And at least in this one case, he wasn't. Two is, are they likely to continue to spread the virus when they develop it again? We don't know the answer to that. That's obviously going to be a critical question.

But I think it's really important to note that he really didn't get sick the second time. It seems like the body's immune system actually did work.

CAMEROTA: That's really interesting, Sanjay, because we interviewed a guy here in the U.S. who felt that he was re-infected. He was very sick, he got better, he tested negative twice, it was shorter time than this. It was like in a month later, he got sick again, very sick and he tested positive.

And so what was happening there? Bad tests or did he get re-infected?

GUPTA: I mean, it's tough to know. I mean, I think the thing about Hong Kong story is that it's very well documented. Part of the issue is there are people who don't actually recover completely from the first infection, they still have virus, it's not actually a re- infection, it's just more of a persistent infection.

And as you well know, I mean, this is one of the concerning things, is that even if people who have had mild symptoms initially, those symptoms may linger and sometimes even get worse. They are called the long haulers now in the medical world. So was that a true re-infection or not?

This is -- I mean there is going to continue to be studied.

[07:25:00]

We're learning, obviously, altogether, but at least in this Hong Kong case, and I really looked at the study, there was evidence that the immunity actually worked in his case.

CAMEROTA: Okay, Sanjay, really interesting. Thank you very much for all of the information.

GUPTA: You got it.

CAMEROTA: Okay. So, coming up, we have new information in that investigation into Jacob Blake, the man who was shot multiple times in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Stick with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight, no real answers, no real explanations for why police shot Jacob Blake apparently in the back seven times in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

This morning, we are seeing the aftermath of another night of protests there as people look for answers.

Sara Sidner live from Kenosha with the very latest. Sara, I know you've been speaking with Blake's family. What have you just learned?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So we know that Jacob Blake has gone through several surgeries that he has been in stable condition, and that he is expected to survive. But as his family said, he's pretty torn up physically.

[07:30:02]

I was able to sit down and speak with his uncle, Justin Blake, who talked about getting that awful phone call that no.

END