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New Day
Coronavirus Pandemic Update from Around the World; Russia Echoes Trump; Hill Voting for Biden. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired September 07, 2020 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[08:30:23]
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Jacob Blake is breaking his silence. The man who was shot in the back seven times by a Kenosha police officer leaving him paralyzed from the waist down delivering this message from his hospital bed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACOB BLAKE: I just want to say, man, to all the young cats out there, and even the older ones older than me, it's a lot more life to live out here, man. Your life and not only just your life, your legs, something that you need to move around and move forward in life, could be taken from you like this, man. And I promise you, the type of (EXPLETIVE DELETED) that you will go through, staples, I got staples in my back, staples in my damn stomach. You do not want to have to deal with this (EXPLETIVE DELETED), man. Twenty-four hours, every 24 hours it's pain. It's nothing but 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 your lives out there. We can stick together, make some money, make -- make everything easier for our people out here, man, because there's so much time that has been wasted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Blake's first public appearance came during a virtual court hearing on Friday. He's accused of third-degree sexual assault and misdemeanor criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. Those charges were prior to and, of course, unrelated to that shooting last month. He has pleaded not guilty.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Interesting to see him, obviously, in the hospital, but his recovery has been remarkable --
HILL: Oh, my gosh.
BERMAN: Given that he was shot seven times in the back, although, again, I do not know what the status is of his use of his legs at this point.
HILL: I -- exactly. I mean that -- that we need more. But I remember just being shocked hearing the seven shots, seeing that video of the close range and just when we heard initially -- even his father saying that he was talking to him, I thought to myself, oh my gosh, he's -- he's lucid and able to talk based on what we know and that's amazing.
BERMAN: All right, India has now surpassed Brazil becoming the pandemic's second worst-hit country behind the United States. CNN has reporters around the world covering the latest developments.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VEDIKA SUD, CNN REPORTER: I'm Vedika Sud in New Delhi. India has passed Brazil's Covid-19 caseload on Monday morning. It is now second only to the U.S. when it comes to known Covid-19 cases. India's reported over 90,000 new infections for two consecutive days.
The country's population stands at over 1.36 billion, while Brazil has a population of over 211 million. India's confirmed death toll stands at over 71,000, the third highest across the world.
One reason for high Covid-19 cases being reported from the country is aggressive testing. India has tested almost 50 million samples to date.
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Scott McLean in London where the U.K. has just recorded its highest single day coronavirus case count since May. Spain hit the same milestone on Friday, the same day that France had its highest number of Covid cases in a single day ever.
Now, keep in mind that this time around there's a lot more testing taking place, which is catching more cases and the virus is predominantly impacting younger people, which has kept the strain off of health care systems and kept deaths relatively low.
But there is concern that that's changing. And Spain, it appears it already has. That country recorded almost 200 deaths on Friday, the highest number it's seen since May.
DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Delia Gallagher in Rome. Pope Francis will travel outside of Rome for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The Vatican announced this weekend he will go to Assisi on October 3rd to officially present a new encyclical, or papal document, on the theme of brotherhood and social friendship. The visit will be private without the presence of the faithful and the pope will also say mass at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: No doubt with all kinds of precautions.
A new warning about Russia echoing some things we have heard from the president of the United States, remarkably in tune with each other. We have a CNN "Reality Check," next.
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[08:38:22]
BERMAN: President Trump has been trying to undermine confidence in mail-in voting. The Department of Homeland Security now warns that he's not the only one pushing that message.
John Avlon with a "Reality Check."
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JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's happening again, Russia echoing Republican talking points in an online disinformation campaign designed to help Donald Trump.
But this time the Trump administration is in power and it's trying to hide evidence of that influence operation from you, the American people.
AVLON (voice over): Now witness the revelation that the Department of Homeland Security suppressed an intelligence document in July showing that with high confidence, Russia was pushing allegations about the poor mental health of 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Now this came in the wake of Trump campaign ads arguing the exact same thing. The line of tack they've only ramped up since. It hit kind of a snag after Trump bragged about passing a mental fitness test.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You go person, woman, man, camera, TV. They say, that's amazing.
AVLON (on camera): But pay attention to the apparently conscious parallelism of the Russian and Republican attacks, because we've seen this before in 2016 when Russian trolls and the Trump campaign both tried to suppress black turnout.
Now, in October of 2016, the Trump campaign was using FaceBook ads to discourage black Americans from voting and at the same time Russian trolls were posing as African-American activists on social media, pushing messages and encouraging folks not to vote in protest or to vote third party.
But President Trump's response has been to dismiss it and take Putin's word over our intelligence community because he benefited and expects to do so again, which might account for Trump's silence or indifference on a series of recent Russian provocations, including putting bounties on U.S. troops, to poisoning opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
[08:40:18]
Because in early August, counterintelligence officials warned that Russia is once again trying to help get Trump re-elected and feeding bogus information to Republican investigations and Joe Biden.
AVLON (voice over): And then, the new director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, stunned Congress by announcing he would stop in-person briefings about election security, citing unspecified leaks.
AVLON con: Now, yes, that's the same Trump defending former congressman who promised the Senate that he would always present the unvarnished truth. Combined with the suppression of the DHS report, it's hard not to see an administration that's trying to use the power of the federal government to advance the president's re-election by hiding information from the American people.
This isn't just unethical. It would seem to be in violence of the law, specifically section 6507 of the National Defense Authorization Act which requires the DNI and DHS secretary to brief Congress within 14 days of an assessment that a foreign power is trying to interfere with our elections.
This is exactly the kind of scenario that law anticipates, but tone comes from the top and the Trump administration too often acts like the law doesn't apply to them, knowing that by the time this is litigated, the election will be over.
But don't forget, the federal government ultimately works for you. You have a right to accurate information about an assault on the basic integrity of our elections. National security should always be non- partisan. And if it feels like deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said, remember, this time the republic is at stake.
And that's your "Reality Check."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: Our thanks to John Avlon for that.
So, Joe Biden just scored what you may consider an unlikely endorsement from someone with whom he's got a complicated history. Details, next.
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[08:46:15]
HILL: Just 57 days now until Election Day in America. The final sprint in the race between President Trump and Joe Biden. And a pair of new CNN documentaries tell the stories of both men. During tonight's film detailing Joe Biden's long journey to the nomination, we're also learning about an unlikely endorsement.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANITA HILL: It was terrifying.
JOE BIDEN: Professor, do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
HILL: I do.
BIDEN: Thank you.
HILL: It was really scary because it was something that hadn't happened before and the stakes were so high.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: At stake, a seat on the Supreme Court for Clarence Thomas. The man in charge, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden.
HILL: I expected for Joe Biden to have a fair hearing. Joe Biden's leadership was very weak.
BORGER: Almost 30 years later, Thomas sits on the Supreme Court. Biden is the Democratic nominee for president. And Anita Hill has made a decision.
HILL: I think Joe Biden is the person who should be elected in November.
BORGER (on camera): So you're going to vote for Joe Biden?
HILL: Yes.
BORGER: Would you be willing to work with him?
HILL: My commitment is to finding solutions. I am more than willing to work with him.
BORGER: Is it just about the fact that's running against Donald Trump or is it more about Joe Biden?
HILL: Actually it's more about the survivors of gender violence. That's really what it's about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: And with us now, CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger, who hosts this documentary tonight.
I have to say, when I saw that, I thought, whoa.
BORGER: Yes.
HILL: Because we knew that this was going to come up again for Joe Biden on the campaign trail. But the fact that Anita Hill has now said she will vote for him and work with him because of the survivors, that changes it a bit.
BORGER: Well, it was kind of stunning to me. I mean she isn't somebody who sort of called me up and said, hey, I'd like to come out and say I'm for Joe Biden. She's kind of reluctant to do this and get in the political fray. But I think she feels that, look, a lot of time has passed. She had a phone call with Joe Biden when he announced that he was going to run, which she seem deemed unsatisfactory. And then over these last month's she's him in a bunch of appearances where she felt he'd evolved and changed and that he finally gets what she was talking about. But, honestly, I think when I talked to Joe Biden about it, and I said I didn't -- it wasn't at the point where I could talk to him about Anita Hill endorsing him specifically, but I said, did you make mistakes in that hearing? He said, yes, but she specifically said he was weak and let the Republicans take charge. And he said to me, no, no, no, that was not true. A little tension still.
BERMAN: OK, so he disagrees with the entire concept of weakness and he still thinks he ran that hearing the right way?
BORGER: Well, he believes that he didn't lose control of it. What he said to me was, I wish I could have done better for her. The truth is I believed her and believed, you know, that Clarence Thomas should not be in the Supreme Court. I'm just looking at the quotes here. So I think that -- I think that she's come around and he has come around. In one appearance he has said, I do take responsibility. That's really what she was kind of waiting for, that he did take -- that he didn't own up to the fact that the hearings were mishandled.
And, by the way, everyone who worked with him at the time during those hearings now admits it.
[08:50:01]
HILL: So it really is fascinating. And there's so much -- I'm so looking forward to this tonight, Gloria, to see more of what we're going to learn.
You point out, though, I love that you just said there off the top, it's not like she was calling you saying, hey, I want to sit down and do this interview --
BORGER: No.
HILL: And I want to endorse Joe Biden. And that, to me, says something to about why she decided she even wanted to sit down for this interview for this documentary that's about Joe Biden.
BORGER: Well, in talking to her, I think she felt she had a responsibility. I think, as you heard her say, there's a whole lot of women out there who are affected by gender violence and sexual harassment. And I think she wanted to give them permission in a way to say, OK, if I can -- if I can vote for Joe Biden and say it's OK, then you can. Although she came out and said, look, this isn't about Donald Trump, but, in a way, I kept saying to her, look, this is a binary choice in this election. And she said, yes, but I think that this is really now, if I have to vote -- if -- if -- I have to vote for Joe Biden, so be it, is the way she put it.
BERMAN: So, as far as I'm concerned, Gloria, the main reason to have elections, besides the whole democracy thing every four years, is so we can see your candidate profiles like this because they are -- they are so interesting and revealing --
BORGER: Thank you.
BERMAN: About people we think we know really well. I always learn so much more.
BORGER: Thank you so much.
BERMAN: You could --
BORGER: Yes, I learn it, too, in the reporting of it. That's what's so great about being a reporter, as you guys know, that you kind of learn going along and you delve into things you thought you knew something about and then you realize you really had a lot to learn.
BERMAN: Joe Biden's faith comes up a lot in this documentary.
BORGER: Yes.
BERMAN: I, you know, was struck by the picture yesterday, he went to church yesterday morning. The president went golfing.
BORGER: Yes.
BERMAN: Going to church, I don't think, is something that is unusual for Joe Biden for whom faith has been a constant presence in his life.
What did you learn there?
BORGER: Well, he is a devout Catholic and his wife told me that even during -- after Beau died, when she lost her faith, he did not. And I don't know if you've seen the clip but, you know, he carries Beau's rosary with him. Senator Coons tells me in this documentary that he watched Joe Biden slip into church many times back home in Delaware unannounced. And that, you know, Biden is a man of faith, which is why it was so striking to me when during the Republican Convention there were people saying, you know, he's not a real Catholic.
He is -- he is a devout Catholic. And I remember talking to one of his staffers saying to me, you know, even when we travel abroad, we have to find somebody or somewhere he can -- he can go to church on Sunday and pray. And so he is, you know, he is somebody, I think he will tell you, and does tell you, that his faith is important to him and helps him get through this. And he -- he is somebody who has been through a lot, not only the death of Beau, but also the death of his wife and young child just weeks after he was elected to the United States Senate. And -- when he was 30 -- 29, almost 30 years old. And that was something he really had to get through.
HILL: And that is, you know, something we've seen he has talked about that, right, as we know, over the years, but it's also that deep, intense loss that he has experienced multiple times in his life.
BORGER: Right.
HILL: That is something he calls on to connect with people. And we have heard about it in private moments, too, I will say, not just public moments. That is something you hear from people who have had a moment with Joe Biden is about that connection and that loss.
BORGER: Yes. Exactly. One of -- one of his former staffers call it his empathy gene. And I think in a way, you know, it's almost pastoral the way he deals with people who are suffering because he feels he understands that grief. You know how he talks about that black hole. He talked about that just recently. I understand when you have a feeling of this black hole in your heart. He does understand that. And he reaches out to people and, in a way -- I'm not a shrink, but in a way I think it helps him when he -- when he does that and he can share grief with people.
To this day, he does that constantly. And it is something that's kind of just second nature to him. And you'll hear some stories in the documentary about how he does that.
HILL: We are looking forward to it. Always good to see you. Thanks, Gloria.
BORGER: Thank you. Good to see you guys.
HILL: CNN brings you the stories of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Do not miss these back-to-back documentaries. They start tonight at 8:00 p.m. right here on CNN.
BERMAN: All right, it's time now for "The Good Stuff."
A New Jersey teacher needed help getting new school supplies knowing she would have to spend a lot more of her own money because of the pandemic. Look, this happens too much around the country to begin with, teachers spending their own money on school supplies. That's a separate issue.
Laura Siervo (ph) reached out to one of her favorite online celebrities with a list of what she needed, actress and comedian Eric Foster, the daughter of famed producer David Foster, posted the list for her half million followers to see.
[08:55:06]
Siervo has now received more than 100 boxes with supplies. Foster has since posted more than a dozen wish lists from other teachers and plans to ask her celebrity friends to share them as well.
That's nice.
HILL: I like those. It is. And, you know, I think it's so important, as you point out, John, and I remember my sister buying -- you know, going through trying to buy supplies for her school years ago. Teachers face this every year.
BERMAN: Yes.
HILL: But this year is especially difficult, right? We know school districts are cutting back because of all the things they have to -- they have to buy to be more prepared and to be safer. You think about everything that's been added on this year, so keep posting the lists.
BERMAN: Yes. It's good -- good for all them. We could also, as a -- as a nation, make sure that our teachers have the supplies they need. HILL: It's a novel concept.
BERMAN: All right, concerns about coronavirus spreading during this holiday weekend. Our coverage continues, next.
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