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New Day Sunday

Campers Airlifted To Safety In California As Wildfire Blocks The Sole Road To Safety; Trump Tell-All Season In Full Force As Cohen, Strzok And Woodward Books Hit Shelves; Experts Fear Labor Day Gatherings Could Fuel Rise In Infections; More Than 50 Arrested In Portland On 100th Night Of Protests; Former Senior Administration Official Says Trump Referred To Fallen U.S. Service Members In Crude And Derogatory Terms. Aired 7-8a ET

Aired September 06, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:00:20]

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Look at this out of the University of Florida.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, a 38-year-old Bob lives in St. Augustine usually at an alligator farm, but he needed to get some x- rays.

PAUL: He's 660 pounds.

Wishing them best of luck there.

SAVIDGE: Uh-hmm.

PAUL: Next hour of NEW DAY starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The wildfire has forced evacuations in numerous Fresno and Madera County mountain communities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't want anybody stock back and to be seriously threatened by this incident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We made it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like the Trump tell-all fiction at the bookstore might need another shelf.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump will do anything and everything within which to win.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president's former attorney Michael Cohen's memoir, "Disloyal", is coming out on Tuesday. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump and his loyalists are strongly

pushing back on "The Atlantic's" reporting that he insulted America's war dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now a former senior administration official is confirming the story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, for me, both personally and institutionally, it's deeply -- deeply troublesome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: Beautiful shot there of the Statue of Liberty as the sun is coming up on this Sunday morning, September 6th.

It's good to know that you're with us today. Makes us feel good. Thank you for being here. I'm Christi Paul.

SAVIDGE: And I'm Martin Savidge, in for Victor Blackwell.

PAUL: We have some breaking news to get to from overnight.

Two hundred and twenty-four people have been rescued from the raging wildfires in California. But more could still be stranded.

SAVIDGE: At least a dozen people have suffered serious injuries from the Creek Fire that's burning just north of Fresno and the Sierra National Forest. Last hour, we spoke with Madera County Sheriff Tyson Pogue about the rescue efforts underway in a Mammoth Pool Reservoir area of the forest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TYSON POGUE, MADERA COUNTY SHERIFF (voice-over): Situation only can be described as hellish conditions for those poor people.

SAVIDGE: There is another area, is that the Arnold Meadow also of concern and people trapped?

POGUE: So, we did have a bunch of people and vehicles nearby Arnold Meadow, and they were able to make it all the way up to where a bridge was being repaired and we had to actually use fire engines to pull them across the creek at that area. So, just some amazing work going on by deputies and the U.S. forest service agents and just a team effort. We're grateful for the help from the California National Guard.

PAUL: Sheriff --

SAVIDGE: It is -- yeah, it's a joint effort. Sorry, Christi, go ahead.

PAUL: No, that's right. When you're talking about 224 people who've been rescued, are there still other people waiting to be rescued and are those helicopter rescues continuing right now?

POGUE: So the bulk of the large group sheltered in place at Mammoth Pool that you see these amazing heroic images and videos, those have all been rescued. We do believe that there's still other people out in the wilderness. When daylight breaks, we'll be continuing the rescue operations to try to find them and get them to safety as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Certainly best of luck. Thank you to all of those national guardsmen and the people trying to get the folks to safety.

Also, there's a group of camper that is captured the stunning video as they were trying to escape the flames of the creek fire. Look at this.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

PAUL: Yeah, very close, isn't it, those flames.

And a general with the California National Guard tweeted out this photo. It was taken from a Chinook helicopter involved in the evacuations. You see most of the trees covered in orange embers. That fire is not even close to containment at this point. It's grown to 36,000 acres in a couple of days.

I want to go to CNN meteorologist Tyler Mauldin for more on what direction the wildfires could take next, especially based on what's happening with the weather and whether that's going to determine that direction.

Tyler, what can you tell us?

TYLER MAULDIN, AMS METEOROLOGIOST: Yeah. That weather played a huge role in that 620 percent increase in the Creek Fire. You can see right now, we have a near live shot for you this morning of what the creek fire looks like at the moment.

[07:05:01]

This is about as close as current as you can get, because this video right here is updated every 15 minutes. So, you can see the fire is still raging. It is one of 74 large uncontained fires across the west. This one specifically is in northern California to the north of Fresno, to the south of Yosemite. It is impacting the Sierra National Forest.

We've mentioned all morning the Mammoth Pool Reservoir. That's located here in the Sierra National Forest. Unfortunately, it's a popular recreational site.

I say unfortunately, because it is Labor Day weekend. Thirty-six thousand acres burned. Zero percent contained. The entire red shaded area here is the area that is being affected by this creek fire as it continues to move to the south.

Now, you can see it very clearly on the satellite imagery, the smoke plume pushing up to the north, and you see it explode yesterday afternoon, in Sacramento, Reno, Nevada, areas north, if you see some haze, it's directly due to this fire. Poor air quality in effect for the entire area due to the smoke. In

addition, we're going to see that this area will see the smoke continue to billow, the fire continue to increase. What you can see it on radar actually. When you look up to the sky, you'll see a cumulus cloud and to the ground, very scary images like this. Very, very scary there.

The conditions for the next 24 hours will be pretty dry and windy across portions of the area at times. Temperatures will be in the mid- 80s here around the Creek Fire. Elsewhere, guys, we could see temperatures well above the century mark, no rainfall, dry conditions. That is just fuel to ignite more fires.

SAVIDGE: It's really hard to imagine worse conditions.

Tyler, thank you very much for the update.

PAUL: Also breaking overnight, the first detailed look at the upcoming tell-all book by Michael Cohen, President Trump's former attorney and self-proclaimed fixer. It's called "Disloyal: A Memoir". It comes out Tuesday, and it adds to the growing list of insider accounts on President Trump and what focuses on his character.

SAVIDGE: Cohen details his former boss's alleged racist view of black leaders, especially Barack Obama. He claims that the president's disdain of his predecessor once drove him to hire an impersonator to belittle and fire in an Apprentice-style video. This is a photo from that shoot from Cohen.

Cohen also gets into the president's ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. We spoke with CNN's Brian Stelter about that last hour.

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BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: What stands out to me are the details about how Trump operates his businesses and how he wanted to use his political campaign and his run for president to benefit his businesses. That's been a theme, of course, of the Trump presidency and Cohen does have new detail about that in this book called disloyal, which as you mentioned, comes out Tuesday.

It's already been a bestseller on Amazon for weeks. There's a lot of interest in this book, even though Cohen has a checkered past, to put it mildly.

Here's a key quote from the book "Disloyal" obtained by CNN's Erica Orden. It says by ingratiating himself with Putin, this is Trump, by ingratiating himself with Putin and by hinting at changes in American sanctions policy against the country under a Trump presidency, the boss, that's Donald Trump, was trying to nudge a Moscow Trump Tower project along.

So, that's one example of Cohen saying that Trump was trying to use his political situation to benefit his business situation, trying to get a big new building built in Moscow, in the capital of Russia -- in Russia. So, that's the kind of storytelling that Cohen shares in this book now that he's an avowed anti-Trump person, he says he is spilling these stories out and there's a lot more in the book about Putin, about Trump allegedly liking how Putin runs Russia with an iron fist, that sort of thing, all in "Disloyal".

PAUL: It's so interesting how close these two were at one point when we think about it, and where they are now. But we did hear from the White House about this book. Their statement from Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany says, Michael Cohen is a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer who lied to Congress. He's lost all credibility and it's unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of his life.

You mentioned it yourself just a moment ago. This is a man who does, at the end of the day, have credibility challenges.

STELTER: Yes. A liar, someone who's been proven as a liar in the past. And in the book "Disloyal", he apologizes for that. He accounts, he says, for his past sins and says the country needs to wake up to the danger that Donald Trump represents.

Cohen is going to be out there on interviews this week saying he's worried that Trump won't give up power if he loses the election. So, it's -- the most dramatic turn you can take as an individual from being Trump's fixer to now be his biggest critic.

And this is not the only new book coming out Tuesday with new details about President Trump and about Russia.

[07:10:05]

The other big new book on Tuesday that we just had our first look at, it's called "Compromised" by the former FBI agent Peter Strzok. Strzok was in the room as the Russia probe was unfolding. He's been tarred by the right for various reasons. But his book "Compromised" is his account in his own words of what was going on in 2016, this probe into Trump.

Here's a quote from "The Atlantic's" interview with Peter Strzok this weekend saying, why is the book titled "Compromised"? It suggests that you believe the president is compromised by Russia. The quote here from Strzok says, in counterintelligence, when we say someone is compromised, it doesn't always mean there are Manchurian candidate or a spy who's been willingly recruited. I don't think Trump has a task list from Putin.

But here's what Strzok says. He says, I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first. He acts from hidden motives. There's leverage over him held by others as well. Leverage over Donald Trump.

That's in another theme in Trump years. It relates to when the president lies people know he's lying and they can use the lies against him to have leverage over him. That's a claim from Peter Strzok. That's going to be a theme of this big book, "Compromised".

So, you have two books on one day, right after Labor Day, both damning for the president. It's one of those things, what will affect him, what he's going to react to. The allegations of both of these books merit attention and then by the way, a week from now, perhaps the biggest book of the season before the election, Bob Woodward has a new Trump book coming out, "Inside the Trump White House", based on more than a dozen interviews with the president. We know that the president is very concerned about this book.

So, it does seem that in this final stage of this general election, more and more information coming, a fuller and fuller picture of the president. In the case of these two new books, his ties to Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: And Brian says it remains to be seen what impact this book is going to have on voters. But Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his campaign have jumped on similar stories as they've trickled out and we should expect more of that as these three books come out the next few days.

Well, there is a new report by the Pew Research Center, and it found that a majority of young adults now live with one or both of their parents. It's as high as it has been since the Great Depression. The coronavirus pandemic is likely the reason why according to new analysis.

PAUL: Public health officials are concerned because it's Labor Day weekend and, of course, we know that previous holiday weekend gatherings this year have led to more coronavirus infections because younger people are going out and celebrating together. Of course, there's concern they could take that back to their parents.

I want to go to CNN national correspondent Natasha Chen.

Natasha, what do we know about celebrations around the country this weekend?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So the concern is large gatherings, right, because we saw some of that happening over Memorial Day weekend. And after that is correct the seven-day moving average of new cases gradually crept upward all the way through mid- July. Now it's come down a bit in some places. But the concern is that this holiday weekend could create another increase like that.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said going into the weekend said it's okay to have outdoor gatherings, probably smaller ones, and it's okay to be on beach but people need to stay socially distant.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN (voice-over): Here's a snapshot of Labor Day weekend beachgoers. On Saturday, a crowded beach in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in Ocean City, Maryland, Virginia Beach, Virginia and Tybee Island in Georgia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any of the stores you go in, you have to wear a mask and all that good stuff.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, they've enforced the social distancing.

CHEN: In Galveston, Texas, the beach was less crowded and here's the view in Jacksonville, Florida. Heading into the holiday weekend, Dr. Fauci advised people to wear masks, maintain social distancing and avoid large crowds.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We want to make sure that all over the country, particularly in the vulnerable states that are starting to show an uptick, that we abide by the public health mandates and rules that we talk about all time over the weekend and not in essence have the same kind of surges that we have seen following other holiday weekends like the Fourth of July and Memorial Day.

CHEN: It's not just super spreader events like holiday gatherings. It's family gatherings, too, that can fuel a rise in infection. At least 147 COVID-19 cases are now linked to an August wedding reception in Maine, a state CDC spokesman said Saturday. Maine center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Robert Long told CNN three people connected to the outbreak have died of the virus.

In New Jersey, the Borough of Mantoloking has pulled all lifeguards for the remainder of its beach season after one lifeguard tested positive for COVID-19. And this morning, beachgoers who may have come into contact with the lifeguard to get tested.

[07:15:05]

Some good news, in New York. The state continues its 29th straight day of a COVID-19 infection rate below 1 percent.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN: The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that there could be about 220,000-some additional deaths by the New Year given the current trend. Now, experts do believe that that number can be cut by more than half if there's universal mask wearing. However, that estimate can also greatly increase if government restrictions are relaxed.

Christi, Martin, back to you.

PAUL: Natasha Chen, we appreciate it. Thank you.

After 100 nights of protests, the message remains the same in Portland, demonstrators calling for an end to police brutality. We'll give you a look at what happened last night.

SAVIDGE: Plus, a former senior Trump administration official confirms President Trump made disparaging comments about fallen U.S. service members. The details next.

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[07:20:10]

PAUL: Well, speaking from his hospital bed, Jacob Blake had a message for his supporters. Look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACOB BLAKE, SHOT BY KENOSHA POLICE: Your life is not only just your life. Your legs, something this you need to move around and move forward can be taken from you like this, man. Every 24 hours, there's pain, there's not only pain, it hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat. Please, I'm telling you, change our lives out there. We can stick together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Blake was shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer who tried to enter the driver side door of an SUV. His three children ages 3, 5 and 8 were in the car at the time. The shooting left the 29-year-old paralyzed from the waist down.

More than 50 people were arrested overnight in Portland because it was the 100th night of protests in that city.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christi, Martin, good morning.

It's the 100th night of protests in Portland. The largest gathering that we saw today and there's events throughout the evening was right here at Ventura Park. There was about 400 people gathered around 7:00 p.m. local time. By 9:00 p.m., police declared the area a riot.

The announcement you're hearing over me right now is the police yet again declaring this area a riot, asking for the folks to leave or threatening to use nonlethal munitions like tear gas and flash bang to disperse the crowd. We did see footage of protesters throwing Molotov cocktails. So, things did get heated.

Once the crowd was dispersed, they split into smaller groups and what you're seeing right now is one of those smaller groups attempting to march forward. They were pushed back by police. Another thing we saw on Saturday was a rally in memory of Aaron Jay Danielson, the far right supporter of President Trump who was shot in the chest by a protester last Saturday. The man accused of shooting him, suspected of shooting him, Michael Reinoehl, 48 years old, he was killed on Thursday in a confrontation with police on Thursday.

But again, these protests continue. The demands have been consistent. They want racial justice. They want a change to the policing system here in Portland and also across America. The protesters say that they are not going to go home. They're going to stay on the streets. With the election heating up, we could see the demonstrations continuing through November.

Christi, Martin, back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE) PAUL: Thank you so much.

And we want to take you to New York, because we now know a grand jury will investigate the death of Daniel Prude.

Here's CNN's Polo Sandoval.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was a fourth night of protests here in Rochester, New York. Peaceful demonstrators returning to the very neighborhood where Daniel Prude encountered police back in late March with their message demanding justice and word spreading quickly among members of the community here about the attorney general's announcement she will be impaneling a grand jury.

Of course, that could potentially mean criminal charges as part of this investigation here. Speaking of many members of the community here who believe this is a step in the right direction. They also hope that this is just a start.

MORRIS MOORE, PROTESTER: I think it's absolutely a step in the right direction. I think it's what the community wants. Me for my own personal perspective, I think it's unambiguously murder that happened. So, I'm beyond excited to hear that this is going to be expedited, that she's taking a lead role on this, and that you're going to have justice behind it.

SANDOVAL: Local officials also reacted to yesterday's announcement, including one of the county officials here that took to Twitter writing: We have all been left with too many questions and not enough answers.

Attorney General Letitia James' announcement that she will move to impanel a grand jury is an important first step in getting those that Mr. Prude's family and our community rightfully deserve.

As for the seven police officers, they remain suspended by the city of Rochester.

Polo Sandoval, CNN, Rochester, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: And protesters march to Churchill Downs for the annual running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville. That's the city where Breonna Taylor was killed in March.

CNN's Jason Carroll is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the demonstration ended where it began, at a park a mile from Churchill Downs. At one point, their numbers were in the thousands as they got to Churchill Downs, marched around the perimeter and then just as the race got underway, they stood, they shouted, they voiced all of their concerns, voiced their message, which is trying to get justice for Breonna Taylor.

There was some concerns about whether or not this protest would be peaceful, whether or not it would be nonviolent. We spoke to one of the organizers who said this was a protest that went off just the way it should have.

TIMOTHY FINDLEY, JR., PROTEST ORGANIZER: Me talking to you right now was a part of our plan.

[07:25:03]

We wanted the world to see, we wanted everyone to see and understand that we're not happy. We're not satisfied with what the attorney general is doing, what the mayor is doing. We want justice for Breonna Taylor.

While that race was going on, people were forced to pay attention to what was going on outside of Churchill Downs. We did so nonviolently, but we're going to continue to do this.

CARROLL: The derby ran without fans, so you didn't have the thousands upon thousands of fans who would normally be at the derby as they were leaving. But no matter to the demonstrators out here today who feel as though their point still got across, which is to make sure that they're not going to let up on the demonstrations until they see justice for Breonna Taylor.

Jason Carroll, CNN, Louisville, Kentucky.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: Jason, thank you.

Well, Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris is worried about fast tracking a vaccine. Her interview without own Dana Bash in a moment.

Stay close.

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[07:30:11]

SAVIDGE: More than 800,000 people have been told to evacuate as a typhoon approaches southern Japan. The storm clocking winds of more than 120 miles an hour wind. That's the strength of a cat 3 hurricane. Coastal communities are expecting record rainfall, strong winds, high waves and potentially deadly storm surge. It is the third major storm to hit the region in two weeks.

PAUL: Well, a former senior Trump administration official has told CNN that President Trump did refer to fallen U.S. service members in crude and derogatory terms.

SAVIDGE: That former official largely confirmed details from an article published in "The Atlantic" magazine which cited sources who said the president referred to fallen soldiers as losers and suckers. The president has forcefully denied that report.

PAUL: CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House right now.

What are you hearing from the White House this morning, Kevin?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, still, vehement denials of this story which is turning into something of a political crisis for the president. Those denials being met with reporting that seems to bear out a lot of what was contained in that "Atlantic" article, including that former senior administration official who told CNN that the president did use derogatory language about American war dead at the cemetery in France when he visited there in 2018.

We're also hearing from people familiar with the president's views that he's questioned why Americans go to war in the first place. He's asked why Americans who fought in Vietnam didn't find a way out telephone. Of course, the president received a draft deferment for bone spurs. The president has also asked why those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan went and served in those wars, asking what did they get out of it.

So, the president's denials are really being met with a lot of corroborating reporting from other outlets, including CNN. All of it turning into a question of credibility for the president as he faces this crisis. Listen to the way the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, explained this dynamic on CNN last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DNI: If this is true, you know, it's really reprehensible and the problem is, you know, it is believable given the president's past behavior and statements he made, most notably about Senator McCain. For me, both personally and institutionally, it's deeply -- deeply troublesome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: Now, this does come a at a moment of tension between the president and the military leadership over issues like sending troops to U.S. cities and the renaming of Confederate -- bases that were named after Confederate generals. It also seems to be like an issue that will turn into a major political one on the campaign trail as we enter that final two-month stretch.

You saw former Vice President Joe Biden's into the -- a Democratic aide tells me to expect Biden to continue to raise this in the weeks ahead.

SAVIDGE: Speaking of the campaign trail, both the vice president and former vice president and President Trump will be on the trail this week. Where will we see them?

LIPTAK: Yeah, both campaigns see Labor Day as the kickoff to the campaign in earnest. The president entering this final stretch as the underdog, still facing a major polling deficit against Biden. He doesn't seem to have received a bounce after the Republican National Convention. And you'll see him hit the road this week.

He'll be in Florida on Tuesday for an official event on conservation before heading to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for one his airport hangar rallies. It's the second time the president has been in North Carolina. Absentee ballots have already been mailed there. Volunteers are already voting in that state.

On Thursday, he heads to Michigan for another campaign rally. That's one of the states that helped to power the president to victory in 2016 but where he's currently running behind the former vice president.

On Friday, he'll be in Shanksville, Pennsylvania to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks. The vice president, Joe Biden, will be in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on Friday. It's not clear whether the two will encounter each other or whether they'll be there at the same time. The president is scheduled to deliver remarks -- guys.

PAUL: All right. Kevin Liptak, appreciate it so much. Thank you.

Let's talk to CNN political commentator Errol Louis about this right now.

Errol, good to see you. Love the tie.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

PAUL: Very sharp this morning.

LOUIS: Thank you.

PAUL: Listen, I want to bring back an article that I found in the "Washington Post" yesterday. It was from November 10, 2016. In it they broke down the military votes in swing states after exit polls, after the 2016 election.

And they found that in Ohio, North Carolina and Florida specifically, the polls suggested that veterans voted for President Trump by a 2 to 1 margin about. Here's what they said. This is after he made comments about Senator McCain, of course, not being a hero or being a loser and that the president said he would do a better job defeating ISIS than the U.S. generals.

Here's what the article said. The numbers also mean, that 2 to 1 number, that a number of Trump's controversial remarks on veterans and foreign policies did not significantly damage his support among military families.

With that said, what do you think of the outlook for families and their support of President Trump? We had Julian Zelizer on earlier who said this president, quote, has an uncanny ability to control the narrative. Do you think that's still true four years later?

LOUIS: Well, we'll see if he can pull it off again, but this is a case where he's running around trying to shore up his base. At this point in the campaign, in this final 60-day sprint to the finish line, when early voting has started in key states, you're not supposed to be shoring up your base and assure them that you have mortally sort of gravely insulted them. You're supposed to be kind of trying to close the deal, seal the deal and get the biggest turnout that you can.

So, the Trump team is kind of fighting from behind. It's also worth pointing out as well, Christi, that in a lot of these counties, it's referred to in that "Washington Post" article, Montgomery County where Air Force Base is in Ohio or in north Florida in the panel handle, an area I know pretty well, there's actually a fair amount of diversity among those.

These are countries that split from Obama to Trump in a lot of cases. But keep in mind, it was Obama-Biden that the counties used to go for. So, I'd say it's kind of a jump ball.

It's not necessarily that the folks are so enamored with Donald Trump, because clearly they voted for Obama and Joe Biden, in some cases twice. So, we'll see how it works out.

PAUL: Errol, you are leading me -- you're so good. You're leading me into my second question. Also in that article, in these exit polls, they said some expressed anger with the seemingly endless words that continued from George W. Bush's term in office through Obama's time in the White House and Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. Vice President Biden obviously is touting his service in the Obama administration as he's in this fight to get votes himself.

What does that tell you about -- this article tell you about residual feelings or potential problems that Biden might face now?

LOUIS: Well, this is -- this is where it gets interesting. Is Donald Trump going to make that case? He's been saying all kinds of things. He's been doing the juvenile nicknames and calling him sleepy Joe and that sort of thing. He's trying to demonize the protests on behalf of police reform.

He's been all over the place. The lack of message discipline itself has hurt him. If he decides that the real enemy in this case is, you know, Jeffrey Goldberg at "The Atlantic", a fine journalist that I know pretty well or if he decides the problem is the "Washington Post" and "The Washington Post" and "The Associated Press" and Fox News have all confirmed the reporting by "The Atlantic", he's going to miss the point which you just made, which is that if he wants to talk about endless wars and the foreign policy that he promised to bring about and to a certain extent made good on, if you can't stand -- that point, he'll risk losing a lot of different forms of support.

PAUL: Real quickly, the Michael Cohen, Peter Strzok, Bob Woodward books coming out this week and next week. You know, the narrative from the right expectedly is going to be this was timed. This was planned to undermine President Trump's potential re-election.

But in 2016, remember, the "Washington Post" published the "Access Hollywood" tape on October 7th. Less than a month and he won.

What do you think the potential is with these books impact-wise?

LOUIS: Well, (INAUDIBLE) that. Keep in mind, though, in a prior election, there was the swift boating of John Kerry back in 2004. It does work both ways.

And, you know, we don't know, never know what kind of a narrative is going to take hold and do damage to a campaign until we see how the public responds to it. So, I don't know about you. I'm going to read as much of these books as I can. But there's a lot of other stuff going on, including a pandemic and mass unemployment and a lot of other stuff.

So, we'll see how much this really does do damage. The point, of course, Christi, is that it feeds into a narrative. And that's the thing very hard to turn around in the final days of the campaign.

PAUL: Errol Louis, always appreciate your insight. Thank you.

LOUIS: Thank you.

PAUL: Uh-huh.

SAVIDGE: President Trump is pressuring officials have a coronavirus vaccine ready by Election Day. But some are skeptical, including vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris. She tells CNN's Dana Bash that she's worried about politics influencing health care decisions.

[07:40:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And do -- but do you trust that in the situation where we're in now, that the public health experts and the scientists will get the last word on the efficacy of a vaccine?

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If past is prologue, that they will not. They'll be muzzled. They'll be suppressed. They will be sidelined, because he's looking at an election coming up in less than 60 days and he's grasping for whatever he can get to pretend that he's been a leader on this issue, when he's not.

BASH: So, let's just say there's a vaccine that is approved and even distributed before the election, would you get it?

HARRIS: Well, I think that's going to be an issue for all of us. I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about. I will not take his word for it. He wants us to --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: And coming up this morning, an exclusive interview with Democratic vice presidential nominee, Senator Kamala Harris. Hear how she and Joe Biden will take on President Trump. That will be this morning at 9:00 on "STATE OF THE UNION".

PAUL: You know, the coronavirus pandemic has made it harder for homeless people in America. Well, we're going to meet an officer who is going to be on the call of duty to make sure they're taken care of.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's doing a lot more than just standing out here doing away waters and t-shirts. He's really giving the homeless community and the addictive community a chance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:06]

PAUL: Well, the coronavirus pandemic is making it difficult for the homeless population to find shelter and resources.

SAVIDGE: The one Connecticut police officer, Jim Barrett, is going way beyond the call to help serve the homeless community. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's just one of those officers who became a police officer but didn't forget that he's still a human being. So he knows what it's like to struggle and be in the streets and hurt and not have anybody there to help you.

OFFICER JIM OFFICER, HARTFORD POLICE DSEPARTMENT HOMELESS OUTREACH: I have approximately over 850 homeless that I monitor and maintain in the capital city here in Hartford. When they see my truck pulling around the corner, it's like the ice cream truck. When they see the police mobile van, all right, they know that Officer Barrett is coming.

You need clothes, right?

Any supplies that they need, I'm there to take care of them.

You need socks, underwear?

They will spread the word. Within ten minutes, I'll have 30-plus people migrating towards my location.

Take care of yourself. You want a T-shirt.

I made a pact to myself when I joined the police force, to protect the community and serve it. You know, I did 21 years in the Army. I try to use that core value, living the creed.

You don't leave a man or woman behind. I incorporate that with the leadership that I developed in the military and I try to bring that into the streets.

Yeah, I got socks. You want small socks?

I go out in the streets, see their concerns, see what they did. I address the critical need, such as, you know, basic hygiene equipment. T-shirts, pants.

Take two.

Food, water.

You're welcome.

Just the basic stuff. To you and myself, it's not much. For someone that doesn't have it, it's something huge.

Due to the pandemic, it's hard because most of our social services and our programs and churches are closed. So doing what I'm doing is very critical.

You got my card, right?

DESTINY RYAN, UNHOUSED HARTFORD RESIDENT: He's doing a lot more than just standing out here giving waters and t-shirts. He's really giving to homeless community and the addictive community a chance.

BARRETT: I gave them a sense of hope. I give them moral support. I'd be a mentor, I'm a positive mentor in their life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my favorite truck.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Officer Barrett, he looks at us as people that are in need. And he has helped a lot of people.

ANGEL VIZAINO, UNHOUSED HARTFORD RESIDENT: Not everybody cares like he does. He help you mentally and physically. You know, he just give you advice that motivates you to keep going.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Officer Barrett.

BARRETT: When I see a woman r a man that I've been working with that got out of the homeless and they had their own life now, their own careers, you can't put a price tag on that.

Good talking to you. Hey, hang in there.

That's what it's all about being a police officer. We give them a sense of hope and belief.

See that smile? It's all -- it's all worth it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: Wow. Officer Jim Barrett, thank you, sir.

Still ahead, she's only been walking for a few months. But this morning, meet a 2-year-old who took a 28-mile journey. And there's a purpose behind this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:53:55]

PAUL: Talk about some human kindness here, this 2-year-old you see here, in Scotland, 28 miles she walked, according to the "Daily Record", she was born with holes in her heart, and the medical teams at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow helped save her life. Jessica's mom tells the newspaper 28 miles is the distance from her home to the hospital.

And about eight months ago, she started walking for two miles a day after just starting to walk for first time in her life. She raised the equivalent of more than $800 for the hospital's charity to help other kids like her.

SAVIDGE: Wow.

PAUL: That's impressive.

SAVIDGE: Feel that all you 3 year olds that are out there?

PAUL: I know, I know, no kidding. Just wanted to leave you with a little bit of a smile this morning. I know sometimes it's hard. Yeah, sometimes it's hard.

Marty, it's always so good to have you here.

SAVIDGE: Thank you, Christi. It's a pleasure as always. Good to be with all of you.

PAUL: Yeah. "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)