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U.S. Congress Battles for Supreme Court Nominee Ahead of Election; GOP Accused of Hypocrisy for Pushing Vote Ahead of Election; President Trump Approves TikTok-Oracle Deal. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired September 21, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CO-ANCHOR, EARLY START: As America mourns the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a supreme political battle now looms over who will replace her just weeks before the election.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CO-ANCHOR, EARLY START: Plus, most U.S. states seeing coronavirus numbers move in the wrong direction as the pandemic approaches a grim new milestone in the United States. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world, this is EARLY START, I'm Boris Sanchez in for Laura Jarrett.
ROMANS: Nice to see you again, nice to see you, Boris --
SANCHEZ: Great to see you, Christine.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans, it is Monday, September 21st, the last full day of Summer, so try to enjoy that. It's 5:00 a.m. in New York, 43 days to the election. And there's an epic Supreme Court fight now at hand. The political stress test facing the U.S. is escalating by the day. The battle to fill the seat of Ruth Bader Ginsburg comes on top of the ferocious presidential campaign and a worsening pandemic about to claim its two hundred thousandth American life, 200,000 deaths. President Trump and Senate Republicans rolling out an aggressive power play, aiming to reinforce a generational majority on the nation's highest court. CNN's Manu Raju has the latest from Capitol Hill.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Boris and Christi. The fight begins in earnest when senators return to Washington later today. This -- the big question that they're going to face is whether or not this should be delayed. Whether or not the nomination fight to go and happen after the November election. Remember, we're just 43 days away from the election. Typically, it takes two to three months to process a nomination, and of course, Republican after Republican, they were all saying the same thing in 2016 when Barack Obama, 8 months before election day nominated Merrick Garland to the court.
They said let the people decide. They're saying now, things are different because this is -- the Republicans control both the Senate and the White House. Back then, a Democrat of course, was in the White House. But nevertheless, some Republicans say that they don't want to step away from that position that they voiced back in 2016. One of those Republicans, Lisa Murkowski announced yesterday that she thinks that this nomination should be punted until after November. Susan Collins of Maine, in a difficult re-election race said the same thing over the weekend.
It's unclear if there are other Republicans who will also join the ranks. They need four Republicans to say it's time to punt until after November. Right now, just two are saying that publicly as a number of them including Mitt Romney of Utah, Chuck Grassley of Iowa have not said one way or the other. Grassley told me in late July that it would make sense to wait until after the election, if a vacancy arose, that he would favor punting on this. He is not saying that's still his position now. Ultimately though, the question will be, can this nominee get the votes to be confirmed even if it happens after the election? And that calculation gets a lot more complicated if Joe Biden wins the White House.
The Republicans lose the Senate Majority and the last weeks of power, they push through this nomination in that lame duck session of Congress. That's why some Republicans want to go quickly because who knows what the environment will be like after the election. Boris and Christine?
SANCHEZ: Manu Raju, thank you for that. Mitch McConnell is poised to move quickly once President Trump chooses a nominee. And that could happen within days. It's hard to ignore the contradiction in McConnell's position on rushing a pick-through, since he took the exact opposite approach with President Obama's nominee Merrick Garland back in 2016.
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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): This vacancy will not be filled this year. We will look forward to the American people deciding who they want to make this appointment through their own votes.
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SANCHEZ: Now McConnell argues that he decided to delay on Merrick Garland because in 2016, the White House and the majority in the Senate were opposing parties, that's still not really allowing the American people to decide the direction of the court with only 43 days left until the election. Now, I want you to listen to Lindsey Graham in 2016 echoing McConnell's statement at the time. And if you wonder why we want to play this clip, Senator Graham asked us to.
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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I want you to use my words against me. If there's a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, Lindsey Graham said let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination and you could use my words against me and you'd be absolutely right.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: Right, Majority leader Mitch McConnell expected on the floor
today to make his case for confirming a nominee quickly. President Trump has already revealed a shortlist of possible high court nominees.
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McConnell has told the president, Republicans would be especially comfortable with Judge Amy Coney Barrett because they know her well, which might move her nomination along more quickly. CNN's John Harwood has more for us this morning from the White House.
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Now, some conservative advisors thought it would be to President Trump's political advantage to delay a Supreme Court nomination to keep conservative voters hungry for the Fall election, to dampen enthusiasm among Democrats by not having a specific name out there. But that kind of restraint is not in President Trump's repertoire. So he's indicated over the weekend he's going to provide the nominee very rapidly, as soon as this week, and that it will be a woman. Now, some of the leading possibilities include Appeals Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett; she was a runner up to Brett Kavanaugh for the last Supreme Court choice.
She's a conservative Catholic, that's an important constituency for Republicans, long-time professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School. Also Barbara Lagoa; she's an Appeals Court judge from Florida, Cuban-American, Cuban-Americans are very important constituency for President Trump, specifically in the state of Florida. Joan Larsen of Michigan, she's also an Appeals Court judge. Michigan, of course, is one of the battleground states in the election. And finally, Allison Jones Rushing; she is from North Carolina, she's a district court judge operating out of Richmond and she is somebody who is a member of the federalist society with a stamp of approval from conservative jurist in the country, also very young, under 40 years old. She could serve for decades on the court.
The question of course is going to be who can Mitch McConnell get through the Republican Senate and when? That's not something the president controls directly. He does control the timing of the nomination, we expect to get that very soon. John Harwood, CNN, the White House.
SANCHEZ: John, thanks for that. The number of Americans killed by coronavirus will cross another grim milestone in the coming hours. The U.S. about to surpass 200,000 coronavirus deaths. The bell at the National Cathedral tolling 200 times on Sunday, once for every 1,000 dead. For some perspective, this was President Trump back in March.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we can hold that down, as we're saying to 100,000, it's a horrible number, maybe even less. But to 100,000, so we have between 100 and 200,000, we altogether have done a very good job.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: That was six months ago. Now in September, 200,000 are dead
and most of the country is headed in the wrong direction again. In 31 states, the number of new cases increased by at least 10 percent in the last week compared to the previous week. CNN is covering all the pandemic developments.
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LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: I'm Lauren Fox in Washington. Yet, another member of the House of Representatives, Democratic Representative Jahana Hayes says she has tested positive for the coronavirus. She is one of at least a dozen house members to test positive for the virus. And she says she was taking every possible precaution, and yet, she still got sick. In a series of tweets she said, quote, "masks, social distancing and frequent floor cleanings are the precautions that are taken in the house. I've taken every possible precaution and still contracted the coronavirus."
She urges in the series of tweets to create a national testing strategy. She said she had a hard time getting a test. In fact, she had a video of herself getting tested for the coronavirus that she posted. She says at this point, she's just asking for prayers for the safety of both herself, her family and her staff.
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Natasha Chen. Over the weekend, Wisconsin has become the state with the highest positivity rate in the country. According to Johns Hopkins data, as of Sunday morning, the positivity rate there is 16.98 percent. It's one of five states with a positivity rate above 15 percent. On Saturday, the Wisconsin Department of Health reported three days in a row of more than 2,000 new cases per day. Like many college campuses across the country, there are outbreaks at schools there. The University of Wisconsin-Madison campus has more than 350 students in isolation. They've moved to all remote learning and restricted students to residences.
PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paula Newton in Ottawa where some Canadian kids can now say good-bye to those icky nasal swabs and those uncomfortable COVID tests. Now, the British Columbia is launching a new goggle tests for all kids between the ages of 4 and 19. Now, how does it work? Kids will basically switch around a salty saline solution in their mouths for a little while, then they spit it out into a tube.
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That tube gets sent to the lab and processed for testing. Experts say it's about as accurate as those nasal swabs. And researchers also say it is one of the first of its kind in the world and is accurate for adults as it is in children. This might be a way in the coming months for Canada to ramp up its testing, especially now that new positive COVID cases have doubled in Canada in less than a month.
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Evan McMorris-Santoro. There was good news out of Maryland this weekend. Governor Larry Hogan reported the statewide average, seven-day positivity rate there dropped below 3 percent for the first time since the pandemic began. COVID-19 positivity rates are at record lows even in densely-populated areas like Baltimore. A sign that Hogan's cautious approach is paying off. But the pandemic continues to wreak havoc in Maryland, especially in the school system. Baltimore public schools reported attendance problems in their all online schedule, with the CEO of the system saying that only about two-third of students are logging in regularly.
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ROMANS: All right, thank you so much for that. Aides for Democratic nominee Joe Biden are telling us how he plans to use the fight over a Supreme Court vacancy to motivate voters. That's next.
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SANCHEZ: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden starting a big push on healthcare, defending Obamacare against efforts by President Trump to dismantle it. It began with a speech Sunday in Philadelphia. And Biden is also appealing to Republicans in the Senate over the fight to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Listen.
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JOE BIDEN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FOR 2020: Look, I'm not being naive. I'm not speaking to President Trump who will do whatever he wants. I'm not speaking to Mitch McConnell to do what he wants and he does. I'm speaking to those Republicans out there, Senate Republicans, who know deep down what is right for the country and consistent with the constitution.
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SANCHEZ: CNN's Jessica Dean was in Philadelphia for Biden's speech. She filed this report.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Boris and Christine. Joe Biden speaking from Philadelphia on Sunday on the Supreme Court vacancy. He called on Senate Republicans, some of them his former colleagues, to do what he considers to be the right thing, which is delay any vote on a new nominee, a Supreme Court nominee, until after the election has taken place. He reminded everyone that in 2016, Senate Republicans refused to take a vote on Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee at the time because it was an election year.
There were still months to go before voting. Biden pointing out that early voting has already started in some states across the country. He says that bell cannot be unrung. He also responded to President Trump's challenge for him to release a list of potential nominees. He said he doesn't want to do that because it could influence a judge's decision-making, it could open them up to partisan attacks. They wouldn't be able to defend themselves. He also says that he wants to get bipartisan consent before he makes his choice, from Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats as he says it should be before making his choice on who his nominee would be, should he win the election.
And he really came back to a theme that we've heard him say since the beginning of his campaign which launched right here in Philadelphia. Which is that, this is a battle for the soul of the nation. And he says that this is about doing the right thing for the country, about following the constitution, he believes the right thing, the less -- the least divisive thing is to wait until a new president has been elected, whoever that is, himself or President Trump, and wait until a new Senate has also been elected to make this decision. He says that he will not be president of a red or blue state, kind of taking a swipe there at President Trump, saying he intends to be a president for all of America. Boris and Christine?
ROMANS: All right, thank you so much for that, Jessica. Now, a big step towards keeping a 100 million TikTok users online in the U.S. President Trump approved a deal between the app's Chinese parent company ByteDance and its U.S. partner Oracle pairing up with Wal- Mart.
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TRUMP: I have given the deal my blessing. If they get it done, that's great, if they don't, that's OK, too, but it's a great deal for America.
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ROMANS: Trump's blessing came hours before restrictions would have removed those viral videos that you see there from U.S. app stores. One huge caveat, ByteDance would still be a majority shareholder. And this wrinkle, the president said he had wrangled a finder's fee for a $5 billion education fund, money for what he calls patriotic education in the U.S. to teach American children the real history, not the fake history. Fuzzy on who's actually paying or if that really happens. TikTok said the deal creates 25,000 U.S. jobs. Meanwhile, a federal judge has temporary blocked the president's executive order, banning downloads of WeChat in the U.S.
A Judge said the ban on WeChat does not give enough evidence because it was narrowly written to resolve the government's national security concerns, the Commerce Department not responding to request for comment. And Boris, a quick check of futures, down sharply around the world here. European markets down sharply because you've got a surge in coronavirus cases in France and the U.K. and in Spain. In the U.S., you've got futures down here almost 500 points. You know, the Supreme Court fight now, there's a concern that, that really takes the eye off the ball on stimulus --
SANCHEZ: Yes --
ROMANS: And just brings more discord to Washington, not a good thing for a market still fighting with a pandemic.
SANCHEZ: Yes, certainly not. Well, I wonder how the president is going to respond to this given that so much of his take on the economy is based on how the stock market is doing. He might use it -- ROMANS: Yes --
SANCHEZ: To try to advance the agenda of pushing a judge through earlier to try to stabilize markets, if that is in fact --
ROMANS: Certainly --
SANCHEZ: Within certainties coming from --
ROMANS: Stocks down three weeks in a row, so he's got to be careful about taking credits for soaring stocks when they're not --
SANCHEZ: Right --
ROMANS: Soaring right now.
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SANCHEZ: Yes, all right. All right, some fantastic finishes on the football field and the basketball court, too. Your "BLEACHER REPORT" is next.
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ROMANS: Goal line stands and buzzer beaters, Sunday night had it all. Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "BLEACHER REPORT", hey, Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS REPORTER: Hey, hi, good morning Christine --
ROMANS: Yes --
SCHOLES: What a sports Sunday, and well, let's start with Sunday night football. You know, the last time we saw the Patriots and the Seahawks with a game on the line at the goal line was Super Bowl XLIX. The Patriots won that game in dramatic fashion, intercepting a pass from Russell Wilson, but this time, it was Seattle's defense coming up with a big defensive play, three seconds on the clock, down 5. Cam Newton tries to keep it.
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But as you can see, the Seahawks defense just blows up the play. Seattle wins the game 35-30. Russell Wilson had five touchdown passes in that one. The Cowboys meanwhile, when they come back for the ages, they were down 20-0, and by 15 points with 4:45 remaining in this game, and they clawed their way back in it. They had to have an onside kick in the end of this one. Watch this ball. No idea what the Falcons are waiting for right here, the Cowboys would recover. They were really excited about it, too. Greg Zuerlein would then get them a field goal to win this game as time expired. The Cowboys at one point win, more than 21,000 fans were on hand to see it.
The Falcons had 39 points and zero turnovers. According to the Alliance Sports Bureau, teams that did that going into yesterday were 440 and 0. Falcons finding new ways to win. All right, as exciting as yesterday was, it was a bad day for injuries. The Giants fierce star running back Saquon Barkley has a torn ACL after this hit in the second quarter against the Bears. He had to be carted to the locker room. Barkley's going to have more tests today, he's likely lost for the season. And all of these guys left their games yesterday with injuries. No team hit worse than the 49ers who already had several players out. They lost quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, running back Raheem Mostert and defensive star, Nick Bosa, still not beating the Jets easily. The team though fears Bosa also tore his ACL, just a rough day in the NFL all around.
All right, to the NBA, Western Conference final game two, Lakers down -- one, two seconds left, going to LeBron, right? No! It's Anthony Davis, the fade-away three at the buzzer. His teammates all just running and attack him, Lakers beat the Nuggets 105-103 to take a 2-0 lead in the series, incredible shot. Finally, Bryson DeChambeau running away with the U.S. Open in Winged Foot, New York. The 27-year- old with his first major by six strokes. He was the only one under par for the tournament. But DeChambeau, get this, put on 40 pounds during golf's shutdown. He just destroys the ball off the tee now. And a fun fact, all of DeChambeau's irons are actually the same length, so then he swings exactly the same way each time. So, Boris, if you're looking to improve your golf game, I mean, there you go, all you've got to do is put on 40 pounds.
SANCHEZ: I was going to say, Andy, some of us put on 40 pounds during lockdown, it all works out, you win the U.S. Open. Some of us put on 40 pounds during lockdown, you get judged by your loved ones. Andy Scholes with the "BLEACHER REPORT", thanks so much sir.
SCHOLES: All right --
SANCHEZ: President Trump has vowed to appoint a woman to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We'll take a look at who is on his shortlist next.
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