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New Day

1,000+ More Americans Die as Concerns Grow over Midwest Spike; ABC Reports, DHS Withholds Bulletin Calling Out Russian Attack on Biden. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 02, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day.

More than 1,000 coronavirus deaths again in the U.S. on Tuesday. This morning, a spike in cases in the Midwest is causing concern. The White House coronavirus task force is particularly worried about Iowa. Iowa had a 22 percent positivity rate yesterday. That means, more than one in five people tested has the virus.

The task force is calling for a mask mandate there and the closing of bars and a plan for reopening universities. But the governor in Iowa has been reluctant to do those things.

As of this morning, more than 25,000 coronavirus cases have been reported at colleges and universities across 37 states. Iowa State University is not only allowing football, it plans to let 25,000 fans into the stadium to watch.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This all comes after an extraordinary move from a medical panel at the National Institutes of Health. Different branches of the same government medical establishment are at direct odds over the data on convalescent plasma. The NIH now says there is no evidence to support the use of convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus patients, at least not yet. And that puts them at direct odds with President Trump, who called it breakthrough and the FDA commissioner who day agreed with the president and then misrepresented or made up data to promote it.

Also this morning, new reaction to the president's trip to Kenosha. He did not mention Jacob Blake's name, not once. It was Blake who was shot by police seven times in the back, which sparked the protest there over racial justice.

And this morning, the author of a new tell-all book about Melania Trump joins us live. She says her friendship with the first lady turned into, quote, the worst mistake of her life.

We want to begin with the pandemic, 1,000 Americans dead over the last 24 hours from this pandemic, more than 185,000 Americans dead in total. Joining us now, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And, Sanjay, Iowa, a 22 percent positivity rate yesterday, which means one in five people tested had it. We can put up the graph of the cases there and you can see just this spike over the last few days. This is the positivity rate. We also have a chart about cases, a spike in the cases in the last few days.

The governor there has been reluctant to do a mask mandate and reluctant to close bars. I guess, they're closed in six counties. The task force wants them closed in 61. What's going on there?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is an example of just how quickly things can get out of hand. You know, the basic public health practices that we've been talking about, not being widely implemented, not being supported or embraced by the leadership, makes a huge difference.

And I think every state in the country, frankly, should take a look at Iowa and just think, hey, look, we feel like we're doing fine now, and then realized that once this thing starts to go up, once you start to get what we call exponential growth, you're behind the curve right away.

And they're still not only are they not embracing these public health practices, what would be considered the worst city sort of in America right now, in terms of overall per capita growth of coronavirus, Ames, they're going to aggregate a lot of people together at a football game, 25,000 people who are going to be probably coming in through similar entrances.

You know, even if they're separated in the stands, wearing masks. There's all of these points of friction, where they're going to actually come in contact with each other. There's probably going to be parties. That situation is going to worsen.

And, by the way, you know, we look at these states and we talk about these events and we worry about these super-spreader events, and then, you know, because there's a lag, we sort of think, hey, it wasn't that big a deal after all. But it's usually a few weeks, as we know, sometimes, even a month after a particular event, before we see the spikes.

So we see that in Iowa. That's probably reflective of some time ago. And then what's happening now will cause continued spikes a few weeks from now.

You know, one thing I want to point out, if you look at the models and do the math, it basically says, for the rest of the year, that a thousand people are likely to die every day. So even if we see the overall numbers coming down as a country, what that basically means is that it's going to be more than compensated by these huge sort of events in various states around the country.

[07:05:02]

And, sadly, that's going to lead to more and more deaths. CAMEROTA: And, of course, that raises the question, how do we stop the deaths. And so, next headline, this morning, does convalescent plasma work, Sanjay, or does it not? Because the NIH says it does not and the FDA says it does to cut down on death.

GUPTA: Well, let me just remind people of the timetable here because I think this is really important. We've been following the story of convalescent plasma almost since the beginning. And I covered convalescent plasma as a potential therapy six years ago during Ebola.

So this is something that's not new, first of all, this idea of taking the plasma from people who have recovered and giving it to people who are actively struggling with the disease.

Now, on Thursday, the Thursday before this emergency use authorization was granted, the NIH, at that point, did come out and say the data was not there. Dr. Collins, Dr. Fauci, they said that. And the FDA seemed to agree.

Over the weekend, there was a significant amount of pressure put on the FDA by the president. The comment was the FDA better see the light or they're going to feel the heat. On Sunday, the emergency use authorization was granted.

We looked at the data. We looked at the data all along, and the data was not compelling. The issue, Alisyn, was that the data they showed actually compared one group of people who got convalescent plasma to another group of people who got convalescent plasma. And they showed the people who had the higher dose of antibodies, the convalescent plasma, seemed to do better.

But they never compared it to a placebo, people who didn't receive plasma at all. They didn't controlled, meaning make sure that people weren't getting steroids in one group, or remdesivir in one group. It was a bad study. That's the problem.

What happened here, I can't tell you, just cutting to the chase, is that there's a lot of enthusiasm around this. And because there was the expanded access programs, tens of thousands of people have received convalescent plasma over the last several months.

The problem is, they weren't receiving it in the form of a trial so that you could actually study it to say if it works. And right now, there's just no evidence that it really does. So, sadly, as much as enthusiasm as there was, this does not seem to pass muster.

BERMAN: And I have to say, this morning, the government response to this and messaging on it is a mess. It's a mess to have one branch of the medical establishment, government say, there's no evidence, and to have the other one to say, it's a breakthrough, it is simply a mess and it raises questions about political influence.

On that note, Sanjay, Scott Atlas, Dr. Scott Atlas, who lately has been more of an economist at the Hoover Institute in California, may be the last person the president listens to before saying anything about coronavirus these days, the principle adviser on coronavirus. The Washington Post reported that he had been promoting or at least raising the issue of herd immunity inside the White House, which is the idea that you let enough people get sick, that they build up immunity in society to it.

Now, atlas has denied this, but you, you have the receipt, Sanjay. You have a remarkable report on what Dr. Atlas actually said. So let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We use the word herd, right? Once you get to a certain number, it's going to go away. So it doesn't have to be -- but, yes, I mean, a lot of people are not going to want to do it.

GUPTA: That was President Trump on Monday talking about the concept of achieving herd immunity by allowing masses of people to become infected, which, if adopted could kill an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Americans, according to some experts. It could also overwhelm the hospital system and would take at least four years to achieve, even if a million people became infected every week.

So why is the president saying this? Well, many point to Dr. Scott Atlas' influence. He's the president's latest medical adviser, a former neuroradiologist, who also has had the president's ear. But on Tuesday, Dr. Atlas strongly denied pushing this idea.

DR. SCOTT ATLAS, PRESIDENTIAL MEDICAL ADVISER: There has never been any advocacy of a herd immunity strategy coming from me to the president, to anyone in the administration, to the task force, to anyone I've spoken to.

GUPTA: That sounds pretty definitive, except here is Mr. Atlas himself in March as part of a Hoover Institute event.

ATLAS: It's important for people to understand mental science, to know that natural human immunity of populations. It is sometimes called herd immunity. It's very important that that develops. That's how viruses are eradicated.

GUPTA: In April, he wrote an op-ed published in The Hill. It was titled the data is in, stop the panic and end the total isolation, saying that infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity. He then spoke with conservative media host, Steve Deace.

ATLAS: Those who are not at risk to be -- to die or have a serious hospital-requiring illness, we should be fine with letting them get infected, generating immunity on their own.

[07:10:03]

And the more immunity in the community, the better we can eradicate the threat of the virus.

GUPTA: And, again, to another Hoover Institute briefing in May.

ATLAS: By doing total isolation and continuing it, we are preventing the development of population-based immunity, which is the most immediately available way to get rid of this threat.

GUPTA: At least four instances of Dr. Atlas advocating herd immunity through mass infection, which makes his denials like this harder and harder to believe.

ATLAS: I mean, the whole thing is an overt lie. But this is Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: So, we did reach out to Dr. Atlas about that, because you heard him basically advocating for herd immunity several times over the past few months. He did release this statement and I want to read it to you. We can put it up on the screen. He is basically doubling down on everything he said before. There is no policy of the president or this administration of achieving herd immunity. There never has been any such policy recommendations to the president or to anyone else from me. That's a lie.

Look, I don't get it. I mean, you just heard him say it over and over again. So you can just listen for yourself.

One thing I do want to point out is the term herd immunity may be getting unfairly maligned here. In fact, that is -- herd immunity is what we want. We want to have the masses of people essentially be immunized to this virus. That's what we want. But I think the case is that a vaccination to get there is a much safer, much more effective way, if you have a safe and effective vaccine versus just letting it rip, the virus through the community, because people would get hurt, people would die and hospitals would become overwhelmed.

CAMEROTA: That pesky videotape that keeps cropping up.

BERMAN: I can't believe Washington. They actually have record buttons on things.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, ten months ago, you'll remember President Trump paid an unscheduled visit to Walter Reed. You had questions at the time. Since then, there's been no answers except that now there's this new reporting that during -- whatever prompted that visit, during that time, Vice President Pence was put on something like standby that he may have to assume the powers of the presidency while the president was under anesthesia. That's the reporting, the White House denies it.

Here is what Vice President Pence --

BERMAN: Almost President Pence, it seems.

CAMEROTA: Here is what Vice President Pence said about it yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall being told to be on standby. I was informed that the president had a doctor's appointment and -- but I must tell you --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to spend too much on it, but I just want to be clear on that.

PENCE: Yes, I got to tell you. Part of this job is you're always on standby, as you're vice president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, look, I don't want you to have to weigh in on the politics, but I know that since that visit, you've looked at some videos, you've listened to some of the president's speeches to try to figure out if there was anything happening that they haven't revealed to us? What do you think, now, ten months later?

GUPTA: Well, first of all, I think if that reporting is true, that there was this issue of possibly drawing up papers for the 25th Amendment for the vice president, you know, that's significant. That's not happened many times in history. When Reagan was shot, it happened. President George W. Bush was under anesthesia twice for colonoscopies and did hand over the presidency at least once to Vice President Cheney at the time.

Look, this is a tough thing to sort of analyze as medical reporters, I think, as anybody, looking at videos of the president and trying to piece this together. I mean, this type of stuff is understandably very protected. Medical information is very protected.

But I think that there was definitely concerns here, okay? I think we can definitely say that. Even aside from this new reporting about the vice president, if we look at the video of that day, we know that Walter Reed typically would be notified. The hospital, there would have been a hospital-wide notice that would have gone out. That didn't happen.

There may have been a few people there who knew, but the roads weren't shut down, there weren't special entrances, which always happens in previous presidential visits to Walter Reed. And I've covered four administrations.

Dr. Conley, who's the president's doctor, he got into the vehicle with the president to ride to Walter Reed. That doesn't happen. That's because of security concerns. They want to have the doctor in another vehicle to potentially administer care to the president, if needed.

So there was a lot about it that didn't make sense. We know that when he got there, the visit -- now, we're not entirely sure the length of the visit, what Dr. Conley subsequently said. It was just over an hour and it was for routine labs and just routine -- part of a phased physical.

We know what the White House medical unit is capable of doing, in terms of drawing labs and basic things like that. [07:15:01]

And everything that they said he had done at Walter Reed on this surprise visit on a Saturday in November, it could have been done at the White House.

So what gives, right? We don't know? What are the types of things that can be done at Walter Reed that can't be done at the White House? Typically, it involves things that are either invasive, that involve anesthesia, or specialized sort of imaging. And the two organ systems that people tend to focus on in these areas are the heart and the brain.

Again, this is understandably protected information, so it's all speculative at that point. So it's very hard to piece together. This is one of the most challenging things to sort of piece together. And we have heard a lot about what didn't happen that day, but very little about what actually did happen that day.

BERMAN: The president, Sanjay, is almost obsessively denying that he had a mini-stroke or mini-strokes. He's the only person as far as I can tell who is even using the words mini-strokes. What does that mean? What is a mini-stroke?

GUPTA: So a mini-stroke, typically, the medical term for it, transient ischemic attack, TIA. People may have heard that word. And, basically, what it means is that you have these brief periods of time where there's inadequate blood flow to the brain and it causes some sort of neurological deficit.

So the thing about TIA is that the deficit, the neurological deficit, which could be weakness of the foot, it could be speech abnormalities, it could be weakness of a hand, it could be facial drooping. It could be all sorts of different things.

But the thing about TIA is, by definition, those symptoms go away. So they come and they go, they come and they go. So someone could actually seem to have a neurological deficit for a period of time, less than a day, less than 24 hours, and then it's completely gone. The person, you know, is back to normal.

The concern with someone who is having TIAs -- and, again, we're only talking about it because the president talked about it. He raised it. No one -- I think you're right -- has raised the idea of this before. But the concern about TIAs is not only that they're happening, but that they could eventually lead to a permanent stroke. And that's the sort of thing that you want to prevent.

Why do people have them? It could be blocking of the blood vessels that provide blood flow to the brain. It could be clotting that's coming from the heart, causing mini obstructions in those blood vessels. There's all sorts of different things. But you have to have that investigated. You have to have that looked at and to try to prevent that more definitive stroke from happening.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, a font of knowledge, as always. Thank you very much for tackling all of those stories with us.

Up next, President Trump peddling another conspiracy. This time, it involves a plane flying somewhere and black uniforms. Scared yet? You will be.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

BERMAN: All right. We have some breaking news just in, new reporting from ABC News. Let me read this here. According to ABC, in early July, the Department of Homeland Security withheld publication of intelligence bulletins warning law enforcement agencies of a Russian scheme to promote allegations about the poor mental health of Joe Biden.

The DHS Intelligence Bulletin warning about foreign interference in the 2020 election was supposed to go out on July 9th, but it was blocked by Chad Wolf's chief of staff. He is the acting secretary of Homeland Security. And you will remember that for months and months, the Trump campaign has raised questions about Joe Biden's mental health, so, too, apparently, the intelligence committee worried that the Russians were.

Joining us now, CNN Contributor Miles Taylor. He's a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, who resigned last year from the administration. Also with us, CNN Political Commentator Karen Finney, she's a senior former senior spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.

So, miles, you had this job. You were there for this type of thing. What does it tell you if this ABC News reporting that the Homeland Security blocked law enforcement agencies from being told the Russians were trying to foment this notion about Joe Biden?

MILES TAYLOR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, John, thanks for having me, and we don't have all the facts yet. But so far on the surface, this is very concerning, and I'll tell you why. When I was chief of staff of the department, if we received intelligence and analysis from our teams, it would be highly, highly unusual for political appointees at the top of the agency to withhold that intelligence from going out.

That raises big, red flags for me, concerns about potential political interference in the election security process, and from a larger standpoint, concern that we've had all along that the president of the United States might try to suppress any information about the Russians trying to help him.

We've already seen the president talk about the Chinese, who, of course, we know from intelligence officials, are trying to meddle in our democratic process. But in the case of the Chinese, the president sees their meddling to their benefit -- or not to his benefit, rather. But because the Russian meddling might potentially benefit him, it seems like he doesn't want to talk about it.

So we need to dig into this further, but this would be, again, highly unusual for the senior leadership of the department to put a stop to an intelligence report that's supposed to go out to state and local law enforcement to help them better secure the election.

BERMAN: Maybe it would have been embarrassing. Maybe it would have been embarrassing, the fact that the Russians were trying to generate the same messaging at the same time that the Trump campaign was. We don't know. As you said, we need to find out more about this.

Sorry, Miles, go ahead.

TAYLOR: if I could add one thing to it, John, though, I want to add that when I was in the administration, we had instances like this happen, where the White House did not want us to talk about Russian election interference, and we had to go around the White House and do it anyway.

[07:25:00]

There was an example where Kirstjen, Nielsen, when she was Homeland Security secretary, was told by the White House, don't bring this stuff up in speeches. And instead, she made remarks in front of a group ambassadors, that included the Russian ambassador.

And she ignored the White House advice and she said, no, if you intervene in our elections, we will punish you. But it was difficult to do that. People were cowed by the White House and told not to engage on these subjects.

BERMAN: Karen Finney, I want to change the subject here. I want to know where we are this morning. We are the morning after the president's visit to Kenosha, where he did not mention the name Jacob Blake, not once. He, of course, was the man who was shot seven times by police there. He did talk about his support for police.

And then he also talked about these unfounded conspiracy theories of planes flying around the country with people he called thugs and then offered no evidence and his campaign offers no evidence. The White House offers no evidence. So what's your takeaway from all of this morning?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, my takeaway is, just to the story you were just talking about, when it comes to Russian interference and when it comes to what is happening on the streets in Kenosha, and by that, I actually mean these armed white militias, one person who seems to have murdered two people, this is Trump's America. He's not keeping us safe.

But let's talk about Kenosha. That trip was essentially the same kind of stunt as we saw him pull when he walked across Lafayette Park, walked up to a church and held up someone's bible. As he said, he couldn't even tell you whose bible it was. That was a stunt. Thank God, this time, no one was gassed, but he was gaslighting the American people about the truth of what is going on in this country, and the truth of what is going on in this country.

He also denied that there is systemic racism, that that exists. As a black woman, I am here to tell you, it's real. It's alive and real. And the best example of that that we have is the fact that, again, this young man who had the AR-15 long gun, as he approached a police vehicle, was waived off, after he had just shot two people. Compare that to a black man being held by the scruff of his T-shirt, shot seven times in the back in front of his children.

The president -- none of this matters to the president, because to him, it is about these political stunts. He is using our pain, frankly, as part of his political games to try to win the election. It is not in his interests to talk about what is happening.

It is in his interest to foment violence and it is in his interest to talk about these crazy, ludicrous conspiracy theories of people on planes, as you said earlier, are they coming? Are they going? What are they doing?

BERMAN: Yes, he's got conflicting stories there and no evidence. It just makes no sense at all.

I do want to ask you, Karen, we're getting reports that Joe Biden and his joint committee with the Democratic National Committee, has raised $310 million in August, which is record-shattering, mind-numbing amounts of money in politics.

But we also learned -- and we also learned, they're going to spend a chunk of that. They're going to spend a chunk of money on this ad campaign that comes off of Joe Biden's speech in Pittsburgh, where he says, emphatically, that -- you know, that looting is wrong, violence is wrong, setting buildings on fire is wrong.

So why is that necessary, do you think, for the former vice president to put that message out? Does it show, to an extent, that they're concerned that the president's messaging is working?

FINNEY: Well, first of all, fantastic numbers, great enthusiasm, I think it shows that people are motivated and mobilized to win this election. Look, I think the importance of what Joe Biden did, and that was a really powerful speech, you know, he talked about, yes, looting is wrong, violence is wrong. It's not that the president's message is working so much is that it is, it is important that we distinguish between peaceful protests and looting and rioting and violence. Nobody is for violence.

And one of the things that Vice President Biden did so beautifully in his speech was to make the point that when we say we're not for violence, we're not for rioting and looting. But we're also not for, you know, police violence. Where, again, a man that has a knee on his neck or shot in the back or a woman is killed in her home, innocently, we are not for violence of white armed militias.

You know, if you want to talk about what's happening in this country, 55 percent rise in white nationalist groups under Donald Trump. That is making us less safe. So if we're going to talk about violence, then we've got to talk about all of it. And I think that's part of the message that the Biden campaign and Vice President Biden and Senator Harris are trying to communicate, that, you know, Trump is trying to sell you one vision that is not accurate. They're trying to give us the whole picture.

BERMAN: Karen Finney, Miles Taylor, we appreciate your time.

[07:30:00]

Thank you so much for being here and helping us understand what is also some breaking news this morning. Thanks, guys.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Okay, John, a former close friend and adviser to First Lady Melania.