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Biden Blast's Trump's Pandemic Response as 'Close to Criminal'; Former Top Aide to Pence Rebukes Trump. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 18, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He knew it and did nothing. It's close to criminal. It's all about his re-election. It should be about the American people.

[05:59:32]

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: This is where he excels. This is where he can directly answer voters' questions one on one.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will deliver a safe and effective vaccine before the end of the year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He thinks that, once a vaccine is approved, the pandemic is done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't need to wait until we get a vaccine or some miracle drug to get this virus under control. We can do it right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: COVID is going to keep spreading in this country unless we buckle down and do a better job.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday, September 18. It's 6 a.m. here in New York. And this morning, two giant political stages, one mask. The one worn by former Vice President Joe Biden as he took the stage for a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania. A metaphor for the evening and in fact, maybe the campaign.

Biden says he puts his faith in science, that he will trust Anthony Fauci on a vaccine, not President Trump. He made some news on a mask mandate. How far he says he can and would go.

He also made news with a swipe at the ivy League. Who's going to stand up for those kids?

President Trump, for his part, is attacking the FBI director for his concerns over Russian attacks on the U.S. election and attacking government scientists about masks. This morning, there is new reporting in "The Washington Post" that the administration had a plan in April to send 650 million masks by mail to the American people. Five masks to every address, but "The Post" reports the plan was scrapped, because there was concern in the administration it might cause a panic.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Here are the numbers. Coronavirus cases spiking again in the U.S. Thirty states are seeing cases increase this morning. More than 44,000 new cases reported yesterday. Almost 900 more Americans were killed on Thursday.

The CDC now projects another 20,000 people could die within just the next three weeks from coronavirus, as the death toll nears the shocking milestone of 200,000 people.

But let's begin with CNN's Arlette Saenz. She is live in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Give us all the highlights, Arlette.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, Joe Biden argued the U.S. is unsafe under President Trump in a CNN town hall last night, less than two weeks before the two face off in their first debate.

The town hall came just two nights after President Trump had his own town hall with ABC News.

And Biden cast this campaign as one between Scranton and Park Avenue, and he slammed the president for downplaying the coronavirus, calling it close to criminal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAENZ (voice-over): Joe Biden took aim at President Trump's response to the coronavirus, in his first town hall since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

BIDEN: The idea that you're going to not tell people what you've been told, that this virus is incredibly contagious, seven times more contagious than the few -- flu. He knew it and he did nothing. It's close to criminal.

SAENZ: Biden told voters why it's important to trust health experts on matters involving the pandemic, like vaccine development.

BIDEN: I don't trust the president on vaccines. I trust Dr. Fauci. If Fauci says a vaccine is safe, I take the vaccine. Now, we should listen to the scientists. Not to the president.

SAENZ: The former VP was asked about Attorney General Bill Barr's recent comments, comparing coronavirus stay-at-home orders to slavery. Biden put the blame on Trump.

BIDEN: You lost your freedom because he didn't act. The freedom to go to that ball game, the freedom for your kid to go to school, the freedom to see your mom or dad in the hospital. The freedom just to walk around your neighborhood because of failure to act. I never, ever, ever thought I would see such a thoroughly, totally irresponsible administration.

SAENZ: As Biden answered voters' questions from a social distance at Thursday's drive-in-style event, Trump held yet another campaign rally in Wisconsin, without social distancing, and very few supporters wearing masks.

TRUMP: By the way, officially, this is called a protest. You know that? We no longer call it rallies.

We don't call them rallies anymore, because, you know, you're not allowed to have a political rally for more than ten people. You're not allowed to go to church. You're not allowed to meet. You're not allowed to talk to anybody. You have to stay in a prison.

SAENZ: While speaking stage near his childhood hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden looked to connect with working-class voters, saying there's a clear contrast between himself and Trump.

BIDEN: I really do view this campaign as a campaign between Scranton and -- and Park Avenue.

SAENZ: The Democratic nominee telling voters he wants to serve as a bridge to unite an extremely divided nation.

BIDEN: I'm running as a Democrat, but I'm going to be everyone's president. I'm not going to be a Democratic president. I'm going to be America's president.

SAENZ: Biden also becoming emotional when speaking about his son, Beau, slamming reports of Trump calling service members losers, something the president denies.

BIDEN: I don't want to get too per -- my son died of cancer. He came home from Iraq. And I have to tell you, it really, really offended me when he volunteered to go there for a year and he came home because of Stage IV glioblastoma, and the president referred to guys like my son -- he won the Bronze Star, a conspicuous service medal -- referred to them as losers. Losers?! Talk about losers!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAENZ: Now, as for that debate, Joe Biden said he's looking forward to debating President Trump very soon. And today we will see dueling events in Minnesota. Joe Biden will tour a union training center in Duluth and deliver remarks.

And President Trump will also be in the state holding a rally, the campaign on full display today with 46 days to go -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Arlette Saenz in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Arlette, keep us posted.

Meanwhile, a new former Trump administration official has come forward to say she is voting for Joe Biden. Olivia Troye was vice president Mike Pence's top aide on the coronavirus task force. She's blasting the administration's pandemic response in a searing new video.

CNN's Boris Sanchez live at the White House with the latest on this.

Boris, I just think it needs to be said. I don't think there is any precedent for the sheer number of people who have left an administration and then said they are going to vote against the leader of that administration.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, John. And the president just dismisses them as disgruntled former employees. More on that in a second.

As you noted, Olivia Troye was Vice President Pence's former homeland security adviser. She was on the coronavirus task force until earlier this summer. Now she's endorsing Joe Biden, because she says President Trump has hindered the United States' response to the pandemic. She believes the president is more concerned about re-election than saving American lives. Here's more from Olivia Troye.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISOR TO MIKE PENCE: Towards the middle of February, we knew it wasn't a matter of if COVID would become a big pandemic here in the United States. It was a matter of when. But the president didn't want to hear that, because his biggest concern is that we were in an election year, and how is this going to affect what he considered to be his record of success?

It was shocking to see the president saying that the virus was a hoax, saying that everything's OK, when we know that it's not. The truth is, he doesn't actually care about anyone else but himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Now, Troye also shared an interesting anecdote during a meeting. The president being told that he shouldn't be shaking hands with people, and he was apparently relieved. He told the room, quote, "I don't like shaking hands. I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people."

The White House, President Trump, Vice President Pence all trying to discredit Troye at this point. The president last night saying that 99 percent of the people who leave the administration and criticize him are lower-level people, essentially nobodies, who are then encouraged to go after him.

Of course, John, we know that's not the case. There are plenty of high-profile names at the highest level of government who have served in this administration that have come out and criticized this president. People like James Mattis, John Bolton, John Kelly, Anthony Scaramucci. The list goes on and on -- John.

BERMAN: Boris Sanchez, look, one person noted on social media, the administration blames so many disgruntled former employees. It would be hard to find a gruntled former employee at this point.

SANCHEZ: Good point.

BERMAN: Boris Sanchez, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

All right. There is new reporting on what the administration did not do with masks months ago. And there's also this really interesting new line of attack from Joe Biden on President Trump. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:12:56]

BIDEN: What Bill Barr recently said is outrageous. That it's like slavery, we're taking away freedom. I would tell you what takes away your freedom. What takes away your freedom is not being able to see your kid, not being able to go to the football game or baseball game, not being able to see your mom or dad sick in the hospital, not being able to do the things. That's what's cost our freedom, and it's been the failure of this president to deal -- to deal with this virus. And he knew about it!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So there were these dueling events last night between former Vice President Joe Biden in a -- in Pennsylvania at a CNN town hall and in Wisconsin, President Trump held a campaign rally. So voters got to see their different approaches and plans for getting out of this pandemic.

Joining us now is CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a professor of medicine at George Washington University and cardiologist for former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Dr. Reiner, it was really helpful to see both of these presidential candidates spell out what they would do differently. So what President Trump said he's doing differently is he's changing the name of his rallies, because rallies of more than ten people in some places, more than 50 in other, aren't allowed. So he's changing the name. That's his plan?

And we'll contrast that with what Joe Biden said about that. Here you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: By the way, officially, this is called a protest, you know that. We no longer call it rallies. We don't use the term "rally," OK? Rachel (ph) knows. We don't call them rallies anymore, because, you know, you're not allowed to have a political rally for more than ten people. You're not allowed to go to church. You're not allowed to meet. You're not allowed to talk to anybody. You have to stay in a prison. Your home has become your prison.

BIDEN: We should be careful across the board, across the board, in terms -- but there is a big difference between people walking, moving along, and people sitting down, cheek-to-jowl, shoulder-to-shoulder, a thousand of them, breathing on one another, indoors and out. That causes real serious problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:15:12]

CAMEROTA: So it was interesting, Dr. Reiner, to hear their different impressions of rallies and protests and danger.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, to me, as a doctor, when I -- I watched both of those events last night. And to me it seemed like the vice president was living in the world in which I live. You know, a world where people are getting sick and we're trying to protect each other. And the vice president -- and the current president was -- is living in a fantasy land.

The president looks like a -- an arsonist who masquerades as a fireman. And everywhere he goes, he -- he sets a new fire. He pretends to put them out, but what he's really doing is igniting the blaze all over the country.

And the reason why he tells his followers that "We're calling this a protest," is that his rallies are illegal in most places. Gathering that many people, particularly without strict social distancing and face mask requirements, is illegal in most communities, or many communities in this -- the United States. So he gets around this by saying that this is a protest. It's not a protest.

The president is really just flouting the -- the precautions that we know would save lives. It's infuriating. It's really, really maddening.

CAMEROTA: They also talk -- I mean, Joe Biden talked about his plan for what he would do to get us out of this. And I'm not sure if we have that sound, but I can also just read it for you. Basically, it's that -- OK, here it is. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I would make sure that I would call every governor in the country into the White House, say, you should be putting mandates out. If they -- and if they don't, I'd call the mayors in their towns and their cities and say, Put out mandates. You can save lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, so, obviously, President Trump also talked to governors and mayors during the height of this. It wasn't a coordinated effort, in terms of calling them all to the White House to get everybody on the same page. And it also wasn't clear that President Trump ever told them that what they should be doing was putting out mask mandates.

REINER: Right. And often what the president did when he had these discussions with governors was to urge them to open as quickly as possible. You know, so from the beginning, the president has been focused on

trying to open the economy. I understand that. But we have a pandemic. And so the task force that we never see anymore -- I mean, is Dr. Birx in witness protection. Where is she? We never see the task force anymore.

And the president does everything he can to try and give the appearance that the pandemic is over, that we're rounding the final corner into -- into the sunlight.

The vaccine, when it's -- it's finally approved, and I hope it's approved as quickly as -- and as safely as possible, is not the end. It's just -- it's just sort of the end of the beginning. But the president just wants that trophy. He feels that that's his ticket to re-election. And that's what he's solely focused on right now.

BERMAN: It is interesting. On the mask mandate, Biden made a little bit of news last night. He clarified his position on that, saying he did not think the federal government could issue a nationwide mask mandate. You could do it on federal land and federal buildings. He would pressure governors to do in their states and then local leaders in their areas.

Dr. Reiner, I want to ask you about another bit of news that's come out in the last 24 hours. And this is from "The Washington Post." They report that there was a plan being discussed to send masks to every house in America. Let me read this to you. This was in the form of a post office draft letter, all right? A draft letter that the post office had. This is a press release the post office was going to release.

"The U.S. Postal Service today announced it will distribute 650 million reusable cotton face coverings on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services to every residential delivery port in America, beginning in areas which HHS has identified as experiencing high transmission rates of COVID-19 and to workers providing essential services throughout the nation during this pandemic."

This was back in April when the CDC was beginning to tell people that everyone should wear masks, and the president was saying, Yes, they should do it, but I'm not going to do it, because it's not comfortable and I don't want to be around world leaders.

They didn't do it, "The Post" reports, because, quote, "There was concern from some in the White House Domestic Policy Council and the office of the vice president that households receiving masks might create concern or panic."

So, again, this in the context of what we've learned from Bob Woodward, that the president says he downplayed the pandemic and still was and really still is intentionally with the idea that there was a plan to send masks to everybody, but it was scrapped for, I guess, political concerns, what does that tell you? And what difference might it have made, had they gone through with that plan, Doctor?

[06:20:00] REINER: Yes. When I read that last night, I was just devastated by it. Because that one decision probably has cost about 150,000 lives.

Remember, the CDC finally recommended face coverings to all Americans going out in public on April 3. And right around that time, HHS partnered with the U.S. Postal Service to distribute 650 million masks. They were going to send five masks to every household.

Remember, the postal service goes everywhere, right? So they were going to do this. They were going to start in places like Louisiana and then go to New York and other hot spots and New Jersey. And then finally, you know, disseminate these masks throughout the country.

But remember, the president was trying to play down the virus. He told this to Woodward. He was trying to play it down, so they didn't send the masks. They didn't send the masks.

Now -- so now imagine an alternative reality where those masks were sent out, and significantly more people in this country wore masks. Where we would be now? Probably somewhere like Germany. We would probably have about 40,000 deaths in the United States right now. Some time over this weekend, we will pass 200,000 deaths and climbing.

You know, what the vice president said last night is probably true. I'm not sure the president can mandate masks everywhere, but the president can set the tone. And Americans are largely rule followers. If the president says, We're all going to wear masks, even if he can't give you a ticket if you don't, most Americans will wear masks.

And we had a plan in April to do this, but this president focused solely on what he thought was important to him, which was not panicking the stock market. Nix that. It's a crime!

CAMEROTA: Dr. Reiner, we're out of time, but I do want to say that the White House says that they did distribute 600 million of those 650 million masks ordered, but they did so to faith-based and community organizations and to healthcare facilities, not to every household.

Obviously, this was found out through a FOIA request and, you know, good journalism. So we will continue to follow whether that is actually true and if those numbers are accurate.

REINER: The masks didn't go where they needed to go.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, Dr. Reiner, very much.

REINER: My pleasure.

CAMEROTA: All right. Joe Biden making the push for working-class voters. He draws the distinction about his roots in Scranton versus President Trump's. Will that sway swing state voters? We'll tell you what he said.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:26:56] BERMAN: All right. Some new language at the CNN town hall last night in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with the former vice president making a direct appeal to working-class voters in a way that he really hasn't before. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I really do view this campaign as a campaign between Scranton and -- and Park Avenue.

I grew up here in Scranton. We're used to guys who look down their nose at us. We look to people who look at us and think that we're suckers. Look at us, and they think that we don't -- we were not equivalent to them. If you didn't have a college degree, you must be stupid. If, in fact, you didn't get to go to an Ivy school. We are as good as anybody else. And guys like Trump, who inherited everything, and squandered what they inherited, are the people that I've always had a problem with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN political commentator Errol Louis and CNN global affairs analyst Susan Glasser.

Just a fact check: Trump Tower's on Fifth Avenue, not Park Avenue.

CAMEROTA: Thank you for that clarification.

BERMAN: Which I'm sure -- I'm sure that the Biden team would love to have come up at a debate and have that fact checked.

And just one other thing, Errol. Someone's got to stand up for these poor Ivy League kids. I mean, Joe Biden, merciless attack on Ivy League education last night.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BERMAN: But this was new language that I haven't heard from the vice president. In some ways, it's language that I have heard from people who were in the Clinton campaign. In 2016, they wished they had used more. They wished they had gone down this -- this lane in 2016. Why might it be effective? What did you think? And do you think we'll hear more of it?

LOUIS: I think -- I think we are going to hear more of it. I think it is effective. And the great mystery of why he hasn't done this sooner. But the reality is he would talk about himself as a, you know, kid from Scranton and so forth. Well, the nation got a chance to see what that means. Just listening to the stories that the various audience members were sharing with -- with the candidate.

And you go and look. I didn't -- I had never really looked at it, but the median income in Scranton is under $40,000 a year. It really is a tough place to try and raise a family. It really is a tough place to try and keep your income going, especially during the pandemic. That's who Joe Biden is. It's the -- the brand that he's built up over

decades. And it's going to serve him well, because he is -- is talking to people and not faking it. I think we got a real taste of that last night.

And it's ironic in a way, because he spent so much of his time in the halls of power, and he is a very powerful person who's had quite a lot of achievement, second to none, really, in politics. But if what you really care about is whether or not you have a president who knows where you're coming from, he gave himself, I think -- he did himself a real favor by going back to his roots last night.

CAMEROTA: Susan, ironies abound. Because as you know, President Trump has tried to seize the mantle, effectively -- I mean, he has seized the mantle of being somehow blue-collar or populist, or speaking, you know, the same language as those folks. When in fact, I mean, as Joe Biden pointed out, he was a millionaire from the get-go.

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, that's right. That's always struck me, is Trump's mystifying event, ability to sort of present himself, not only as a populist but literally as sort of the tribune of the people. He uses this line all the time. He was at a rally again last night.