Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Biden Blasts Trump's Pandemic Response as Close to Criminal; U.S. Nears 200,000 Deaths, More Than 6.6 Million Cases; Former Top Aide to Vice President Pence Rebukes Trump, Supports Biden. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired September 18, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: The entire time during U.S. Open in New York after suffering the injury before the tournament has started.

[07:00:05]

So she will definitely be missed there at the French Open.

Justin Thomas, your leader, John, at the U.S. Open right now. It's like a sports bonanza. You've got golf, you've got baseball, you've got the NBA, you've got the NFL, college football, Stanley Cup Final about to begin, crazy busy time for the sports world.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: It's all happening, Andy. Thanks so much for being with us. I appreciate it.

New Day continues right now.

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

Two candidates with starkly different messages about COVID-19. Donald Trump holding a crowded rally in Wisconsin with few masks and no social distancing. Joe Biden holding a town hall in Pennsylvania at a drive-in with voters asking questions from cars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Back in March, I was calling for the need for us to have masks, have the president stand and tell us what's going on. But he knew it. He knew it and did nothing. It's close to criminal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: President Trump, meanwhile, continues to flout safety regulations in whatever state he goes to. He says he'll get around those pesky state rules by no longer calling his rallies rallies.

BERMAN: He says he's going to call them protests in order to circumvent local restrictions on large gatherings. All while coronavirus cases, and this is what's important this morning, cases are spiking in certain parts of the country. 30 states are seeing an increase in new cases. More than 44,000 new cases reported yesterday across the United States. That's higher than we've seen in a while, and nearly 900 new deaths reported.

The CDC now projects another 20,000 people could die in the next three weeks from coronavirus. This as the death toll nears 200,000. We will pass that in the next few days.

Joining us now, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And, Sanjay, not only, I think, was there a visual contrast in these events last night, Joe Biden walking on stage with a mask, the whole event socially distanced, the president holding a rally like he has with people all over each other, but I think there was a rhetorical difference, as well, that the vice president was trying to lean into. This is S3 (ph) I want to play. Just listen to what he talks about in terms of vaccines.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Big picture, Sanjay, what was your medical takeaway from what these candidates provided last night?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, Vice President Biden is walking this fine line, because, you know, you have this process which, with regard to the vaccine, with regard to emergency use authorizations, which is unquestionably been politicized. I mean, you know, I don't know a few months ago, you certainly had hints of it. It's unquestionably been politicized.

The question really is, can something that has been politicized also eventually lead to a trusted vaccine? I mean, you know, that's the big question here. You want the vaccine to be safe, you want it to be effective and you want it to be trusted, which maybe goes without saying, but that is a really, you know, important question right now. Half the country, roughly, is saying they won't take this vaccine.

I will say, look, I understand the significant erosion of trust that's occurred at the FDA. We've been reporting on that for months, talking about the use of emergency use authorizations inappropriately. With the vaccine, which is given to healthy people, obviously, a lot of people are enthusiastic and optimistic about it. I think the question is going to be, if you feel it's politically pressured in some way, can it still result in a safe, effective, and trusted vaccine?

I think there's enough regulatory process in place, there's independent entities that look at this data. Hopefully, there's full transparency of this data, ultimately, when it comes out. I would like to look at it. But, you know, who -- I think that's going to be the big question. That's the line that the vice president is walking.

CAMEROTA: I thought it was very interesting also, Sanjay, last night to just hear their different plans for how to, you know, get their arms around this pandemic. So Joe Biden said that his plan is that he would call every single governor to the White House, all 50 in one place. He would come up with, you know, some sort of unified plan for all of them to implement. Obviously, he would take their feedback, as we know, not all geography is the same across the country, so it would be a conversation and then they would figure out altogether guidelines.

As you know, what President Trump did, in terms of his tact, was he sort of staged a survival of the fittest kind of model for the governors, whereby, whoever called him, whoever could curry favor, they would pit each other against the others in terms of who could pay most. And so that was a different style.

[07:05:00]

And one more thing, you know, Vice President Joe Biden says that he would listen to the experts. You have some information on what has happened to the experts. Why at the latest White House briefings haven't we seen the coronavirus task force members, like Dr. Birx, that we are so familiar with?

GUPTA: We started to really recognize this now several weeks ago and there are some people who have come out and spoken about this on the record, others who just prefer to remain on background. But what they've basically said is that the task force, which has still been meeting amongst themselves, there was a doctor's group that was made up of Fauci, Birx, Redfield and Hahn, they would meet separately from the task force meetings, but the person that was in the Oval Office actually talking to the president was Scott Atlas. Everyone else was sort of gone.

And if you looked at that briefing on Thursday, when the president was talking about vaccines and talking about these other things, the distribution of the vaccine, there was only one person that was in that briefing with him, which was Scott Atlas. So you know, we're not hearing from the other task force members. They're the ones who came up with the gating criteria. They're the ones who would take issue with these peaceful protests, rallies, whatever they're called. And they're not -- they're not being listened to anymore. That's been pretty clear now from several sources that I've had within the White House.

BERMAN: And Dr. Birx sort of supplanted Anthony Fauci and now Atlas has supplanted Dr. Birx. Is Dr. Birx even talking to the president anymore?

GUPTA: It doesn't sound like it. I don't know specifically if there's communication in any way, but before it was briefings within the oval office. You know, when I reported on that a few weeks ago, the White House came back and said, no, that's ridiculous. You know, Ambassador Birx is still talking to the president. I don't know. You know, if that's happening, it's not happening in the way that it used to. And the person who seems to have the ear of the president, again, according to these sources is Scott Atlas, in the Oval Office, talking to the president at these briefings.

BERMAN: Sanjay, I want your take on a report out of The Washington Post, which was that back in April, there was an administration plan to distribute $650 million masks. The plan got so far that the Postal Service had a draft press release explaining what was going to happen.

Let me just read this to you. The U.S. Postal Service today had announced it will distribute 650 million reusable cotton face coverings on behalf of the Department of Health Human Services to every residential delivery point in America beginning in areas which HHS has identified experiencing high transmission rates of COVID-19.

This would have been five masks, basically, to very house, Sanjay. But it didn't happen. Why? Well, The Post reports, 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.

Again, that word that they were concerned that too many people would get scared about the pandemic, that's why they didn't do it, The Post reports. What difference would this have made? What did you think when there was a plan to send five masks to every house in America?

GUPTA: This was really, really stunning. And it kind of gave me a pit in my stomach, because, you know, I mean, we knew even going -- you know, to get to that point in early April, there was already plenty of evidence that this virus could spread asymptomatically. When we heard that, we knew this was an entirely different sort of pandemic. People who had no idea they were carrying the virus because of inadequate testing, which had also been minimized, were carrying the virus and spreading it.

The idea that masks could make such a huge difference that was abundantly clear, even probably, you know, a month before that particular memo that you just read came out. If those masks had gone out, you know, you look at the calculations, you model this on other countries, you see what has happened, and it seems like maybe 80 percent of the people who have died could have been saved. I mean, people are going to get really upset about this and they should.

I talked to people who are family members of people who died last night, just in general, I check in with them periodically throughout this entire pandemic, just to check in on them, because they're so frustrated and irritated and they read that same report. And it's a gut punch. So many of these things could have been prevented.

One of my sources last night told me, every step along the way, good information that could have made a huge difference was buried first. Then if it came out, it was minimized, then it was ignored, and now it's being ridiculed. Whether it's large gatherings, whether it's masks, whatever, stuff that could have saved the majority of lives in this country has now gotten to the point where it's being ridiculed, not just minimized and buried.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much for all of that reporting.

All right, joining us now is CNN Political Analyst, Maggie Haberman, she's a White House Correspondent at The New York Times. Maggie, great to see you.

So, let's talk about these dueling events last night. There was the CNN town hall event with Vice President Joe Biden, in which he took questions from voters at a distance, in their car.

[07:10:02]

And then we have the rally on the right-hand of your screen there, at an airport hangar with President Trump, which is not socially distant and very few people in masks.

But what was interesting, Maggie, to us, one of the things, was that you heard Vice President Biden draw this stark contrast between his identity and his life story and growing up in Scranton, blue collar, versus Donald Trump's, who has tried to seize the mantle of populist president, as you know, but it was sort of the green acres contrast of Times Square, fresh air. And that's what we hadn't heard, you know, Joe Biden really lean into before. What was your takeaway?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that's right, Alisyn. Look, it also comes at a time when there are some Democrats who are pushing Joe Biden to speak more forcefully about the economy. This is way of talking about the economy and it's a way of reminding people that President Trump is rich.

One of the things that Democrats pressed in 2018, although it was, by no means, the only message, was the idea that the tax cuts that President Trump signed into law really benefited wealthy people like the president and his friends and not working people.

And so I think that seeing Joe Biden do that is part of a more traditional contrast economic message that he has not made consistently and that he is certainly doing now. Will he do it every day before the debates? I don't know, but I think it is part of laying down the groundwork before he appears on a stage with President Trump.

BERMAN: Let's listen. We actually have Joe Biden using this contrast in language that I think is obviously planned and indicates to me we will hear more of it. So listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I really do view this campaign as a campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue. And I really mean it, because, you know, the way we were raised up here in this area, an awful lot of hard-working people but their neck, all they ask for is a shot, just a shot. All that Trump could see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. All he thinks about is the stock market.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Also, I think there was an attack on the Ivy League. Do we have that sound? Because this is something that --

CAMEROTA: That's really gotten in your craw.

BERMAN: Yes, these poor Ivy League kids can't catch a break. No, we don't have that.

CAMEROTA: Oh, well.

BERMAN: So, Maggie -- but it is interesting, because if we --

HABERMAN: We can make do without it, I suspect.

BERMAN: Yes. But when you talk to people in 2016, I think the regrets that you get from the Clinton people is that they didn't press this notion that Donald Trump was a child of privilege. And when you hear Park Avenue versus Scranton, to me, that's scripted. To me that's indicative of something we're going to hear more. It was like a trial run for the debates, I think.

HABERMAN: No question. And I think, John, you saw Joe Biden's Twitter account tweet out a very similar message. We should just note for factual purposes, President Trump actually lives on Fifth Avenue, but I think the words Park Avenue resonate more.

But you're absolutely right, that a contrast that the Democrats regret not having drawn explicitly in 2016 was the idea that Trump comes from privilege, that he inherited his wealth, he has tried to remake his story as if he was given what he calls a small loan of $1million by his father. Due to reporting in The New York Times, we know that it was much bigger than that.

And I think that Joe Biden is trying to seize that moment because part of what people are going through right now is not just experience -- experiencing a pandemic, but they are economic fallout from that pandemic. And that, I think, is something that Democrats, some of them, would like to see Joe Biden doing more.

BERMAN: By the way, I love the idea of a fact check. And I bet you the Biden campaign likes the fact check. They're waiting for someone to talk to --

HABERMAN: It's really Fifth Avenue, not Park.

BERMAN: It's Fifth Avenue, not Park. They're sort of learning how this works.

CAMEROTA: Joe Biden also said that he would be the president for, you know, all states, that he is running as a Democrat, he said, but he would be the president for all Americans. And from Joe Biden, you know, it's somebody that you sort of believe that he feels that way, because he comes from Scranton and because he has this history of having had Republican friends, whereas President Trump just yesterday basically does not want to be the president of the blue states. I mean, and he blamed the blue states for the coronavirus death toll in the U.S. So that's just another point of contrast. HABERMAN: So it's interesting, Alisyn. Several months ago when people who were involved in the coronavirus task force in the west wing began to quietly say, you know, you're going to see us focusing more and more on the idea that this is happening in Democrat-led cities, there was a real resistance and I think a surprise by some folks covering this that that was the direction he was taking.

The president is now, as he often does with these things, taking what was said privately and basically just reading the stage directions out loud and saying, yes, if we didn't have these states, our numbers would be lower. Well, it's a whole country and he's the president of blue states and red states. And so this is all part of the tally. It's not as if New York and California and Washington State and so forth are not part of the U.S.

[07:10:02]

And that is what he is trying to create.

I do think that you are hearing Biden try to say that he will be the president for everybody, because one of the clearest areas where the president has decided that he does not want to govern over the entire country is his demonizing of states that didn't personally support him in his election.

CAMEROTA: Maggie Haberman, thank you very much for all of the analysis, as always.

All right, a former top aide to Vice President Pence is rebuking President Trump and pledging her support for Joe Biden. How many others will come forward? We discuss all of this, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning, a former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence is blasting the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic in a new video. Olivia Troye was a Homeland Security Adviser to the vice president and a lead staffer on the White House coronavirus task force.

[07:20:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER 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 was 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 is okay, when we know that it's not. The truth is, he doesn't actually care about anyone else but himself. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And to be clear, Olivia Troye, who was working in the administration a few weeks ago, now says she will vote for Joe Biden.

Joining me now is another former administration official who now says he is voting for Joe Biden. Miles Taylor is now CNN Contributor.

Miles, you know Olivia Troye well. In fact, you recommended Olivia Troye from the Department of Homeland Security to work for Mike Pence and ultimately in the coronavirus task force.

As we said, she was in the room where it happens. Weeks ago, she was in the room where it happens. So what does it tell you that she is now coming out saying she was so deeply disturbed, so disturbed, she was going to vote for Joe Biden?

MILES TURNER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, thanks for having me, John.

Look, like you said, I know Olivia Troye. I served with Olivia Troye. And I can tell you what she is not. And she is not a liar and she is not a political hack. And I can tell you what she is. She's a patriot, she's an honest civil servant, and she is someone who had a front row seat to this White House and this president and the vice president's decision-making.

I think, look, there's no other way to cut it. This is damning for the White House. The White House keeps saying that there are anonymous sources who are saying false things about the president and it's not true. And if you only really saw the president in action, you would be so impressed with his leadership and his abilities.

Look, Olivia Troye was one of those people, like you say, who was in the room where it happened and she is providing that firsthand testimonial that Donald Trump, on the most important national security issue of his entire presidency, was totally, totally checked out, to the extent that he was more focused on his reelection than he was on saving American lives.

I think the White House is panicking here, John. And you can see it in their response. They've trotted out the vice president's national security adviser and the vice president himself to denigrate Olivia Troye.

And I'll tell you this, John. Both of those individuals, Vice President Pence and Keith Kellogg, his national security adviser, have personally thanked me for referring Olivia Troye to their office and said she was doing an incredible job as his Homeland Security adviser.

But this is par for the course for this White House. They like someone until that person criticizes them and then they literally pretend to barely have known the person and say, well, that was just a backbench staffer who had no impact. That's not who Olivia Troye is. She was a central player in the coronavirus task force.

BERMAN: So you say they personally thanked you, the vice president, Kellogg, personally thanked you and told you that they thought that Troye was doing a great job, nevertheless, you heard them in the last few hour say she was a disgruntled employee, she was a minor player, they've released her resignation letter, where she praises the coronavirus task force.

It's not just you though who is sticking up for Olivia Troye and competence. We heard overnight from Dr. Anthony Fauci. Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I interacted with Olivia. I liked her. She was a good person. She was important to the team as a staff person to the coronavirus task force.

The only thing I can say is that there are a lot of people who are looking carefully and are driven by the truth. And I think the American people should feel confidence in that, that a lot of people are looking at this very, very carefully to make sure that there's not political things that drive what should be scientific considerations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Dr. Anthony Fauci overnight, who did not want to talk at all about the politics of it, but did stick up for Olivia Troye.

Miles, you're one of them. It just goes -- it needs to be said that I can't recall a time where you have so many people who, weeks or months ago, worked in the administration and have now come out and said before an election, they will not vote for the man on top of that administration. Why is it happening here?

TURNER: Well, John, I think it's a simple answer, and that is people are so affected by what they saw in Donald Trump's White House that they feel they have no other choice than to risk their careers and their reputations and their personal lives to come out there and actually say what happened in this administration.

Right now, America is trying to decide whether to retire or rehire Donald Trump. And these people feel like it's important to come out and say the truth.

Just yesterday, our organization, Repair, which Olivia just joined, also announced another former Trump administration senior official that joined our ranks, Josh Venable, who was the chief of staff to Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education. And we will have others.

Olivia Troye, you need to think of her as a domino that's going to start a chain reaction of more people having the courage to speak up about this president, about this presidency and about the direction of country and some of the damage that's been done by Donald Trump and why we need to repair it.

[07:25:12] So I think this is just the beginning. I'm hopeful that you're going see more focus at a senior level coming out and talking about this. But, again, Olivia Troye is just the beginning and, hopefully, more people will have the courage to speak up.

BERMAN: Miles, I want to ask you about something else in the news over the last 24 hours, and this has to do about a rift, I think, it's safe to say, with the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and the president of the United States and Attorney General Bill Barr.

The FBI director testified before the House committee yesterday. By the way, the acting Homeland Security Secretary was supposed to testify too, but he refused. So the FBI director was there. And he talked about how Russia is once again attacking the U.S. election, this time to hurt Joe Biden.

And what he said, I think, was a deliberate contrast -- it certainly was a stark contrast to the way that the attorney general and the president are attacking -- are discussing attacks on the U.S. election. So listen to the contrast here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We certainly have seen very active, very active efforts by the Russians to influence our election in 2020, primarily to denigrate Vice President Biden.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Russia, China and Iran, which is the most assertive, the most aggressive in this area?

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I believe it's China.

BLITZER: Which one?

BARR: China.

BLITZER: China more than Russia right now?

BARR: Yes.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: China wants us to lose very badly. And you know who else is not happy with us winning? Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So the issue there, Miles, is that the FBI director says it's Russia, and says Russia is attacking this election and trying to hurt Joe Biden. And the FBI -- I mean, the DOJ, I mean, Bill Barr, to have him just deny it and say, no, it's China, to wolf, although he did it sheepishly, that contrast is really stark. And Wray knows this when he is testifying before the House under oath yesterday. So what did you hear? Why do you think that happened?

TURNER: Well, Director Wray is telling the truth. I had the pleasure and the privilege to serve with Director Wray. He's a good man, he knows what he's doing, he cares about this country and he's very focused on election security. And his bureau is doing work to protect Americans against election threats.

But you've seen it, John. You've seen it in that the president of the United States, the attorney general, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, the director of National Intelligence, are all, in some way, shape, or form seem to be downplaying the threat from Russia and playing up the threat from China.

That is no coincidence. They're getting the signal from the president, who is basically saying, if the Chinese are against me, I want to call them out. If the Russians are for me, I want to downplay it because I want that help. That may sound like hyperbole, but it's the truth.

And we witnessed the same thing in 2018. When I was in the administration and we were trying to protect the 2018 midterm elections, we got very, very worried, because we briefed the president and the White House that China was a threat and that Russia was a threat. But the only one the president came out and criticized at the time was China.

And we went back to the White House, me and Secretary Nielsen and said, what are you guys doing? The president needs to come out and also call out Moscow, a foreign adversary that's being most aggressive in the lead up to this election, because we need to deter them and we need punish them. There needs to be consequences for these countries meddling. But, again, the president's personal self-interest mattered more to him than the country's interest.

And you're seeing the exact same thing play out again, only this time because a lot of the people who were there in 2018 are now gone. You've got lieutenants of the president who are willing to follow his lead, downplay the real threats. Thank God we have got people like Director Wray out there to tell the truth.

BERMAN: It is notable that the day after he made angry remarks about CDC Director Robert Redfield, the president was angry tweeting at Christopher Wray last night on his way back from a political rally, so, clearly, a split there.

Miles, thanks so much for being with us. I appreciate it.

TURNER: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning, more than half of European countries are seeing an alarming surge in new coronavirus cases. We're going to speak to a top World Health Organization official about why it's happening.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]