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Cuomo Prime Time
Trump: Coronavirus "Affects Virtually Nobody"; WAPO: Putin "Probably Directing" Operation To Hurt Biden; Pence Aide Blasts Former Coronavirus Task Force Member Who Now Criticizes Trump. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired September 22, 2020 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The endorsement also comes as polls give Biden a slight edge in the battleground state of Arizona, which John McCain represented for more than 30 years.
It's been a very busy night. So, Chris is going to pick things up right now with "CUOMO PRIME TIME."
Chris?
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Thank you, Anderson. I am Chris Cuomo and welcome to PRIME TIME.
200,000 lives lost, third worst loss of life in our history. I'm sorry for the families lost. And I'm sorry that you had to hear this from your president.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It affects virtually nobody. It's an amazing thing.
(CROWD CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Then this "I'll never lie to you" Press Secretary tells you the death toll has the President awake at night, so worried that he stands maskless in front of a tight crowd, again tonight, telling jokes, instead of holding maybe a moment of silence for the 200,000 stolen by this pandemic, maybe trying to prevent some of these good people in this crowd, who are too close together, and without masks, from sharing their fate?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They don't like spinning those cameras.
They don't like showing them.
They don't like showing. Show the crowd. And this is, it's an honor, let me tell you. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: All of you are free to feel any way you want about the media, about each other. I just don't understand why he feels this way about you.
I have to show you the crowd. It's not about politics. It's about a public service announcement. This is what not to do in a pandemic. It's an honor for him. I'm sure it is.
But it's a great regret for me. I'm so sorry for people that in those crowds, whom he is assisting in exposing themselves to something that could make them sick, really sick, or God forbid, worse.
Why must support for this president be a risk to your health? Still worse, this president knows that 200,000 lives lost, not to even mention the many, many millions more who were, are and will be sick. So much of this didn't have to happen.
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TRUMP: Well I think it's a shame.
But it's a horrible thing, should have never ever happened.
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CUOMO: He's right.
How many of you voting, right now, who can literally go online, fill out a piece of paper, and get a ballot, how many of you will hear those words that we should have never been in this situation the way we are right now, and hold this president to account?
He is responsible for creating much of the shame in this situation. Testing, tracing, masks, distancing, they were always the keys for us. And he has always stood against them.
Even tonight, not a word about, "You got to do the masks, got to socially distance, hygiene, hygiene." Not a word about the need to do better for our kids. "Kids have to be in school." How? He's never said how.
We are failing our kids. You don't need me to tell you. I know you're living it. You are telling me. I'm living it too. We are failing our kids. They can't test adequately. They can't teach in person the right way. We're failing them, but he gives himself an "A."
On this first day of fall, 24 states are falling backwards, with new cases rising, 40,000 cases a day, that's an important number for population our size. It's what experts believe is a rate that just suggests you're trending the wrong way.
Then President tells you, "It is what it is." That's because he refuses to do anything about it. That's what you say, "It is what it is," when you can't change something. The pandemic is not what it is. It is what we make it through our response.
Now, I'll tell you what's true. He is who he is. He's the same man who told me the day Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the high court, in 2016 that as a matter of principle we shouldn't seat the judge because it was too close to the election.
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CUOMO: You say, "No. Don't do it, wait for the next election." Why? You say that "Washington's broken. They don't do their job enough. They all play games." This is one of those games if they don't hold hearings. Why continue the problem?
TRUMP: Because I think the next president should make the pick, and I think they shouldn't go forward.
[21:05:00]
We don't have a very long distance to wait. Certainly they could wait it out very easily. But I think the next president should make the pick. I would be not in favor of going-forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Is he lying then or is he lying now? And, of course, one of our problems collectively is, you probably don't care. If you don't like him, you expect him to lie. If you do like him, you expect him to lie.
Now, Ginsburg successor probably will be confirmed before Election Day. Why? Because power means more than principle to him, and to the Republicans, who are driving this. They all looked you in the face and said, "As a matter of principle, we have to do this, this way." Now they're saying, "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" because they know you don't expect any better.
The question is what does this moment mean for our wellbeing politically and practically?
We have one of the main senators in this kind of discussion, OK? Angus King, Independent from Maine, respected both sides of the aisle, friends both sides of the aisle. They look to him as a man of principle and conscience. He's going to have to speak up now.
Senator, thank you for doing so on this show.
SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): Thank you, Chris, good to be with you.
CUOMO: Do you disagree with anything I just said?
KING: No, I'm afraid I can't, and there's so many ways to attack that.
But one of them is, that Senator McConnell, the President's accomplice in this Supreme Court issue, waited four months, and basically hasn't done anything about another COVID relief bill, when we still got people unemployed, people that are being evicted, small businesses that are going under, schools that are struggling to try to reopen, nothing on that.
And yet, all of a sudden, we're doing backflips to confirm a judge in a matter of weeks. It's pretty disappointing, Chris.
And to go back to the - to the COVID thing that, you mentioned, you keep talking about 200,000 people. But I read a study the other day that said each one of those 200,000 people has an average of nine relatives that are affected by this.
So, you're talking really almost 2 million people, who have been directly affected by a death from this disease, let alone all the people that have gotten them. They're just - it's a catastrophic failure of leadership.
CUOMO: What's been your experience in the Senate, in terms of understanding the "Why" here? Why they don't want to do more to jump on the pandemic? Why they don't want to jump up and down to yell for something to be done for schools?
In your state, and really, there's no way of pulling anybody out of the equation. Everybody is suffering. All our kids are being--
KING: No. I've got to brag--
CUOMO: --underserved except in pockets. Why not more outcry?
KING: Well let me - first, I want to brag on Maine for a minute.
We have the second lowest infection rate in the country. And we just - Moody's Analytics just said we are the highest state in getting back to normal. And it goes back to the issues of how this has been handled.
The reason we're in that condition is number one, Maine people care about each other and are responsible, but number two, we had a Governor who made some really hard decisions, took a lot of heat, particularly during the summer tourism season, but it's paid off.
We're closer to any other state to being back to normal right now. And we have the second lowest infection rate in the country. So, it's - we've had sort of real-time biology experiments going on in front of our eyes.
And if you look at the states, by the way, you said 24 are going up, I just saw some figures that said 27 are headed back up, in terms of infections, but our Governor took - made those decisions, made the kinds of decisions the President should have made last spring, and it's worked.
Now, you ask a tough question, and you really ought to be talking to my Republican colleagues about why they aren't really more aroused and fighting and concerned about this.
Look, it's no secret. Donald Trump owns his base. They're going to do what he says. They're going to follow him. And if he tweets, and you're a Republican senator, and he tweets that
he doesn't like you or you're not on the team, you're gone. And ask Bob Corker or ask Jeff Flake or Mark Sanford down in North Carolina. I mean, that's the reality. It's just self-preservation is a pretty strong instinct.
CUOMO: So, in terms of what the implications are, on the court side, we talked about the pandemic, people are pointing to what is up in terms of what this will mean. And they talk about Roe v. Wade.
But I don't want to talk about that, because we understand the politics of it. But the ACA is something that it doesn't matter about your politics. You need health insurance.
[21:10:00]
KING: Chris, the ACA argument, the case that the Trump administration is supporting to completely wipe out the ACA is being argued the week after the election in the Unit States Supreme Court.
CUOMO: November 10th, oral arguments.
KING: Yes. And here's the - here's what's at stake. Again, I was just checking the numbers in Maine.
We have about 150,000 people. That's more than 10 percent of our population on either the ACA exchange or the expanded Medicaid. About half of our people, Chris, have pre-existing conditions. And if the ACA goes, that protection goes.
CUOMO: He says he's going to do it by Executive Order, the Administration says, "The President will take care of pre-existing conditions by Executive Order," you believe that?
KING: Yes. Don't hold your breath. I don't know how he does that. I don't know how that could possibly stand constitutional challenge as opposed to a statute passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.
They keep talking about taking care of pre-existing conditions, but nothing that the Republicans or the President have put forward in the last 10 years has covered pre-existing conditions. And if the ACA goes, this term of the Supreme Court, that's going to go too.
And if the President has a health plan, and he's going to take care of pre-existing conditions, let's see it. He's been promising this health plan since he ran in 2016. Nobody's seen it yet.
And "Repeal and Replace," that's a really great motto, but we've never seen the "Replace," in any serious way that would do anything about the underlying problems of supporting people on healthcare.
So, you're right to focus on that because the very first case to come before the Supreme Court, after the election, is going to be the future of the Affordable Care Act. CUOMO: Now customarily, if somebody isn't seated during oral arguments, traditionally, the judges haven't participated in that case. But who knows these days.
Let me ask you one more thing while I have you, Senator.
KING: Sure.
CUOMO: The CIA assessment, I had Rudy Giuliani on the show on 9/11.
And I asked him about Derkach, and said, "What are you doing hanging out with this guy? You know, it's your client's Administration that says he's a bad guy. He's not to be respected. He's a propagandist. He's working with Russia." And Rudy said, "Yes, they can say that. He isn't."
Now, that is one of the main concerns of our Intelligence apparatus that if you don't think somebody is on the make, you're very susceptible to them.
And sure enough, "The Washington Post" comes out, and others, with reporting that Rudy Giuliani could be getting worked by this guy, which is an extension of ongoing Russian efforts, led by Putin, to mess with our election, disadvantage Biden.
What do you make of all that?
KING: Well I don't know anything about what Rudy Giuliani's relationships are with this guy, although I've seen pictures of them together. Listen, he was sanctioned--
CUOMO: They're in video on the internet.
KING: --he was sanctioned, last week, by the U.S. Treasury Department, and he was mentioned in the election security briefing that we had, back in early August, specifically by name, as essentially a Russian agent, working on behalf of Russia, spreading disinformation on behalf of Russia.
And so, I mean, that's just - facts are stubborn things they say and there's no question right--
CUOMO: The President's lawyer is hanging out with a guy--
KING: --who this guy is.
CUOMO: --that you guys are getting briefed about to see as part of a malevolent act against the United States. You got the President's lawyer calling him a friend?
KING: Hey, my mother used to say, "Lie down with dogs, you get up with flees."
CUOMO: Yes, but when that dog has a hand with the most powerful man in the world, who's considering whether or not to care about this, I mean we haven't heard anything from the President about it. And the only thing that makes sense to me, Senator, last word to you, is that somebody's got to be telling him it's not as bad as the rest of us think.
KING: Well, that gets to the question of Intelligence, and I'm - my passion is that Intelligence has to be given straight, unvarnished, without concern for what the President or the National Security Adviser or the Members of Congress want to hear.
They've got to get the straight information. Otherwise, you have bad facts and then you make bad decisions. So, the President ought to want the unvarnished opinions. But who knows whether he's getting that.
Dan Coats gave him the straight information, and we all know that he's now gone. He was the - he was the right guy to hold that position. He was an honorable honest man trying to do his best for the country.
When you start shooting the messenger, then the messenger stops giving you the message that you really need to hear.
CUOMO: Or he or she sure does take a beating because the attacks never stop.
Senator Angus King, thank you. It's good to see you looking well. Best to you up in Maine.
KING: Always a pleasure. Thanks, Chris. See you, later.
CUOMO: All right, take care, Senator.
[21:15:00]
Elections have consequences, no doubt, no doubt. But they shouldn't have foreign interference. As the Senator and I were just talking, Trump's own former National Security Adviser, H. R. McMaster, says the President is making it easy for Russia to undermine our election, and CIA secrets just leaked out about the role Putin is playing in that effort.
Let's take it to Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent, who famously helped launch the Russia investigation, next.
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TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.
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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: The warning bells, they're going off. They're being leaked. They're sound to us. They're being overtly we're being told to listen louder and louder, and yet we've all grown deaf. I'm talking about Russia attacking our election.
[21:20:00]
We know more about it now than we ever have before. It seems more obvious, more pernicious and more potentially effective than ever. What do we get told by Trump administration Intelligence folks? "They want to help Trump and hurt Joe Biden, divide and distract us."
Boy, are we ripe for the picking, aren't we? If you want to come at us, now is the time.
We've heard this before, but not like this. And you know what? Moscow is counting on your apathy. That's what we're being told.
This time, "The Washington Post" says it's the CIA saying "Vladimir Putin and the senior-most Russian officials are aware of and probably directing Russia's influence operations aimed at denigrating the former U.S. Vice President, supporting the U.S. President and fueling public discord."
Boy, we're making it easy, aren't we?
Admit it. You have questions about the election security. President keeps telling you it's going to be rigged. His people around him keep saying it. They say balloting is rife with fraud. They have no proof. They're doing Russia's work for them.
Boy, are we easy pickings!
The warning bells, remember, are coming from Trump's own people. We've seen the warnings from the Director of National Intelligence and the Treasury Department. Apparently the CIA, NSA, FBI, all say this is coming directly from Putin.
Trump's own FBI Director told Congress this.
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CHRISTOPHER WRAY, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: We certainly have seen very active, very active efforts by the Russians to influence our election in 2020.
And I think the Intelligence Community has assessed this publicly to primarily to denigrate Vice President Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Now, you'll hear Trumpets say, "Oh yes, but China does it. North Korea does it." No, not like this, not now.
Now, this President attacked his own guy. Remember, Trump's own administration issues sanctions against the guy that you just saw with Rudy Giuliani, Andrii Derkach, for running, what they call, a covert influence campaign, the very influence campaign that this president personally amplified on his Twitter feed, the same campaign that his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani refuses to acknowledge.
I asked about this with him, just last week. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: But you know our government sees Andrii Derkach as a guy who should not be respected or trusted and that they think he's a propagandist--
RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY, (R) FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: You know I don't--
CUOMO: --and an operative for the Russians.
GIULIANI: That's OK. They can see him that way. He is not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: How susceptible is the President's attorney to someone who he refuses to see as on the make? I mean, this is mind-blowing.
The President's Intelligence apparatus says "Watch out for this guy," and the President's guy says "Nah, I'm OK with it." And they're saying, "Well he's working you, and you're putting out exactly what he wants you to put out, to attack Biden." And he says, "Yes, no, I am OK with it." Crazy!
Former Chief of the FBI's Counterespionage section is Peter Strzok. His new book is called "Compromised". Boy, you talk about apropos.
I mean, Peter, thank you for being on the show.
How do you get more compromised than the President's own lawyer says the guy that is feeding him stuff one way or another, that at a minimum he is parroting, he says, "No, I don't buy it, I think he's a good guy." How much more compromise do you get than that?
PETER STRZOK, FORMER FBI CHIEF OF COUNTERESPIONAGE SECTION, AUTHOR, "COMPROMISED": Chris, it's staggering. And look, thanks for having me back.
I think we have grown, across the board, dull to outrage. But take a step back. We're talking about Russia. This is the one nation on earth that has enough nuclear weapons pointed at us to wipe us off the face of the planet.
And that government is actively involved, right now, and their Head of that government, Vladimir Putin, working as we speak, to get Donald Trump re-elected.
And we know that, because his own Administration is telling us that, whether it's the Head of his - the Counterintelligence group, the Director of National Intelligence, whether it's the Director of the FBI, in the clip you just heard, these aren't partisans.
These are people appointed by the President, who are apolitical in nature, who are telling us, right here and right now, from the top, from Vladimir Putin, he is trying to get Trump re-elected, just like he did in 2016.
CUOMO: So what do you say?
STRZOK: How can that be OK to anyone?
[21:25:00]
CUOMO: So, what do you say to people like "Yes, you know, Pete, yes, I heard this already. This is what they do. We probably do it to them. And, you know, it is what it is," to use the terrible expression of the moment, what do you say to them?
STRZOK: Yes, well, two things.
First, we are defined as a democracy by the - at our core, electing our head of state, our representatives. We don't have a king. We don't have a dictator. We don't have an authoritarian.
We go, every four years, and sit down and choose, who we the American people want to lead us. We don't have the Russians or the Chinese or even the British or the Canadians or anybody else doing it. That's our business, and it's been our business since 1776.
Second, it isn't just "So what." Look at what the Russians stand for. They're putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers in Afghanistan. They are trying to assassinate domestic dissidents with nerve agent, again, probably directed by Putin.
Time and time again, they are doing things that are contrary to American interests, and there's nothing but silence coming out of this administration.
And for the some claim, "Well I didn't know about it," you just had Rudy Giuliani, "I didn't know," well, you know now. And if you're the President, you didn't read a PDB about those Russian bounties, in February, you know now. What are you doing about it? What's the response? And I can't explain it.
CUOMO: And - but so many in this country will take comfort in the fact that he hasn't said anything, can't be that big a deal.
"And how can they affect our democracy anyway, unless they hack into the vote counts somehow, which aren't really automated in places, it's mostly done by hand, they can't really do anything. And there's tons of BS on the internet, we all have to look at it with a jaundiced eye."
STRZOK: Well I think there are a couple of things.
Certainly, looking domestically, there are all kinds of things that we know they did. They were probing every single state the voting infrastructure. And
it's become public now that several states have said, "Yes, in fact, we were targeted, and we - they were successful. They got into our systems." They are absolutely doing the same thing now.
And if any single one of these systems, we're heading into an election where it is - it's partisan as it's ever been, we're facing the prospect of a contested election, we're depending on mail-in voting, if it's a close election, we may not know who the winner is on election night.
And so into that environment, which is a societal powder keg, that's just a playground for Russian disinformation. And I'm really worried that given what they've done in the past, they're absolutely primed and ready to take advantage of that right now.
CUOMO: Scary thought is that, I wonder - we know why Trump wouldn't say anything. He wouldn't say anything because this is good for him.
And the question is, I wonder if all the people who are following him, that so big with the American flag, and love of country, and patriots, would they go soft or turn a deaf ear to what Russia is trying to do to our democracy, because they think, well, even if they are, it can only help Trump?
Weird times! Peter, thank you for giving us - I'll give you the last word. Go ahead.
STRZOK: No. I was going to say, I served with - the men and women in the military that I served with in the army, they are the sons and daughters of those people who are large Trump supporters.
So, you need to ask yourself, is that something that you're OK with, that this foreign adversary, who's targeting those servicemen, that's OK? It's not OK, Chris. That's not acceptable and it never will be.
CUOMO: Peter, I appreciate the context. And I will need you again and soon, I expect. Be well until then.
STRZOK: OK. Thanks so much, Chris.
CUOMO: Listen, you can't say it enough, 200,000 lives stolen by COVID, it shouldn't happen, all those families, friends, co-workers, who lost somebody, all that opportunity, all that human potential gone. How are we not doing all we know we can to save lives?
Look at our schools. We all say we care about the kids, right? Why is our President, why is the Administration, why are they so quiet, on how badly we're failing our kids in schools?
"Well he said they should go back to school." So what? How? They can't test enough. They're not testing the right way. They don't know how to contact trace. If they get a case, no matter what the context of the positive is, they close down schools.
And so, what do you think is going to happen? When it swings one way, it swings another, right, reaction formation?
So now, you got a place in Missouri swinging the other way. "Yes, I knew you were exposed to somebody with COVID. But go to class. Enough with this quarantine thing. Let's get back to school." What?
A parent, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Doctor, and a concerned parent weigh the plus-minus factors here, next.
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[21:30:00]
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CUOMO: You can't be satisfied with what's happening in so many of our schools.
Hey look, if in your community, kids are back to school, God bless, I hope you're testing and monitoring, doing what you can at home, to stay healthy, and I hope it stays that way, but so many of the rest of us are compromised.
How do we do better by schools, get more open, more kids in there, and keep them that way?
No easy answer, but there are ways, certainly better than what we're doing now, especially as more schools are finding that just a single positive case can force the whole school to shut down, or, at a minimum, a whole pod, a whole thing.
Some Southwest Missouri school districts are trying to navigate this in a different way now, I call this reaction formation, this is what happens when you have a bad situation, people start doing bad things in response, to allow students who have been exposed to COVID, to continue going to class and playing sports.
The catch they say is, "The students have to keep their masks on and stay socially distant." The reasons for it are not irrational. There are real concerns here.
You don't know that being exposed to somebody with COVID. You don't know what degree of virus the person that has it. Are they contagious, are they not? Will you get it? Will you not? What are the chances? They're not so great.
[21:35:00] But what we know for sure is every day you are not in school is education loss. Too many kids are missing school. Nutrition, a lot of these kids go to school, not just to learn, but to eat, to survive. And we know being out of school can have an impact on mental health. For some, it's a refuge from abuse. This is complicated. We need our schools.
And now, just days into these changes, one district has had to reverse course, why? Well not because of new cases, but, in a notice to parents, the Neosho District Superintendent said, "What started out as a quiet effort to determine if we could keep students in school without having a spike in positive cases became a political issue."
Now, the Neosho Superintendent, I invite him on the show. Why? Sympathetic to his cause, understand why he's desperate to find a more safe way. Then he says, "No, I'm cancelling." "Why?" "We're really conservative here." I thought you just didn't like it being politicized!
I see them as sympathetic. I see schools like that as desperate for better answers, and he's going to play politics?
Here's one thing that's clear. Despite that posture, I will advocate their cause. We need to do better by that school and others so that superintendents don't have to make decisions like that.
Brandi Long is a parent of three kids, who attend schools in that school district, and of course, Dr. Gupta, friend to all. Thank you for both.
First, just to get the medicine here straight, Doc, the idea of "Well, you are in contact with somebody who has COVID, but as long as you wear a mask and socially distance, you can still be around us," how safe is that?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. That's not the right answer, Chris, unfortunately.
If you've been exposed, and I'll say, even if you get tested, testing is a big part of this, but even if you get tested, for a period of time, there's a concern that you may actually have the infection.
And the quarantine time, people discuss this, and I think the outer limit's sort of 14 days. But typically, if people have been exposed, if they're going to develop symptoms, you're going to test positive, typically happens within five days or six days or so. But you have to treat that with a degree of care.
If you've had a known exposure to somebody, you've got to assume that, at least for a period of time, you're going to have to quarantine yourself, so you don't subsequently pass the virus onto others. That's how outbreaks start to really worsen.
CUOMO: So Brandi, you and I and actually Sanjay, are kind of in similar boat. You got three kids in the district. You got a freshman in high school,
good luck with that, you got a fourth grader doing virtual, and you got a first grader, who you're home-schooling. So, you really are spreading the risk across all the different kinds of concerns.
What is your concern about the status quo at your school? Let's start with the freshman, in terms of how much they can test, how they're treating the kids, how confident they seem in their ability to control virus.
BRANDI LONG, PARENT OF STUDENTS IN NEOSHO, MO: We're not testing. I mean kids are getting tested, but their tests are hard to come by.
I think if we had better testing, the contact tracing could be minimal, because we could just - we could test the kids and then they could stay home, if they were positive, and go back to school, if they're negative.
CUOMO: What did you think about this reaction from the Superintendent that "Look, you know, this is crazy. We can't monitor this the right way. So, let's err on the side of having kids in school because they need it."
LONG: I don't agree. I don't agree that we should send sick kids to school. I think parents should be responsible for their children.
And when my kid gets sick with COVID, I want to be the one sitting next to them. I don't want it to be a nurse or one of my teacher friends or any teacher. I want it to be me, who's responsible for my children.
CUOMO: Yes, you said that you have a friend who's a teacher.
LONG: I have lots of friends that are teachers.
CUOMO: And it kind of heightened your concern that a lot of them are vulnerable. They're not being protected. They're not being given in the information or the ability to get the information. What are your concerns there?
LONG: The school is doing the best they can do. But they are not giving us enough information so that we can make educated choices about what we do as parents, what we do as teachers.
I volunteer hundreds of hours a year to our schools, which I'm not able to do this year because of COVID. So, they need to let anybody help that wants to help, really.
CUOMO: You know, Sanjay, we know a lot of Brandis, parents who are trying to do the best by their kids, in schools--
GUPTA: Yes.
CUOMO: --that have just been left on their own.
The states don't have the data that the CDC does. They don't have the testing capacity to give these schools. They're not even really using tests that work practically in schools right, these PCR tests, at so many cycles. They go so deep, they give you positives. You don't know if they're contagious or not. They take a long time to turn around.
And is there any indication at the federal level that you're hearing of them trying something else, or trying to do better.
[21:40:00]
GUPTA: Well, I mean, first of all, I totally - totally sympathize. We all - I have three kids too and we went through this whole decision matrix, Brandi. It's not easy. Every family out there sort of been left to become their own amateur epidemiologist in all this.
There isn't a national strategy, which is - which is part of the challenge here. There were these gating criteria, you remember, "This is when you should open schools," and they were specific criteria.
You wanted to make sure that the viral - the viral spread in your community was coming down, why? Because if it was coming down, and when it came down 14 days in a row, then your chances of actually coming in contact with somebody who has the virus was going to be significantly, if not, exponentially lower.
If the positivity rate was low, that meant that you were testing enough in your community, and that you were catching enough.
So, you could see there, what is the sort of red zone that's on the right side of the screen, greater than 200 cases, out of 100,000, in the last 14 days, greater than 10 percent positivity.
Brandi, I did look at your particular community. And, again, I know these are tough decisions, but you guys are sort of in that higher to highest sort of category right now, which I'm sure is something--
LONG: Right.
GUPTA: --maybe you've considered, but it does make the likelihood of coming in contact with someone with the virus much higher. And that's the concern.
You obviously want to look at the school, see what they're doing, in terms of hand-washing, and masking, and physical distancing, which by the way is really hard. You just need a lot of square footage to actually get that--
LONG: Really hard, especially with little kids.
CUOMO: Yes.
GUPTA: --that physical distancing.
CUOMO: Especially with little kids is right. Try to get a little kid to--
LONG: Yes. GUPTA: Yes.
CUOMO: --put a visor on, try to get them to look at a Zoom class for 45 minutes left alone in a room where they have tons of different things that they could be doing.
And the frustration is we should put that chart up there. But it assumes people are getting tested. Brandi, you just said something that's so true for so many that your school isn't doing regular testing. People can get tests, but you got to get them yourself.
LONG: Right.
CUOMO: And that's pretty scary. I mean how can you trust that the school knows what's going on, when you know that they don't have a testing protocol. How do you deal with that?
LONG: I mean we just do our best. I'm a very concerned parent. So, I stay on top of, as much as I can, I go to the board meetings and try to be included in everything, so I know what's going on.
CUOMO: And you know what's not going on, right? Like if they were to say--
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LONG: And what's not--
CUOMO: --if we're testing regularly, you know that's not true.
LONG: That's correct.
CUOMO: Well look, Sanjay and I have said this to too many people and we're going to say it to a lot more. Good luck going-forward. Let us know if we can help.
GUPTA: Yes.
CUOMO: Thank you for telling us the truth about what's going on where you are because you care about your kids, and your friends and their kids as well. So, I wish you well, and thank you. And I hope things get better.
LONG: Thank you for having me.
CUOMO: All right, Brandi Long, thank you very much.
GUPTA: OK.
CUOMO: Doc, as always, you're a blessing, thank you.
And the President gives himself an "A!" Missouri, can't test the school, Superintendent has to make this really whacked decision to have kids who've been exposed to COVID come back, why? Because he doesn't have any better option. Nobody's giving him better options. And the President gives himself an "A!" A Coronavirus Task Force member resigned over concerns with this Administration's response. And now, the White House is rolling out aides to attack her, a highly decorated General.
My next guest says he knows what General Kellogg said today about Olivia Troye is not true. Why? Because he was in the White House - I'll let him tell the story. You have to listen to Miles Taylor on how he knows what you were told today is BS, next.
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CUOMO: It has to matter how we conduct our politics, OK? It has to. I know both sides do things you don't like. I know you expect nothing. But we have to start expecting better, and accounting for a certain standard. Otherwise, this is going to be toxic for all of us all the time.
It's not OK that the White House is going all-out to attack a former Adviser to the Coronavirus Task Force. Today, Kayleigh "I'll never lie to you" McEnany pulled out a Retired General to go after Olivia Troye.
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LT GEN KEITH KELLOGG (RET), VICE PRESIDENT PENCE'S NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I'm Keith Kellogg. Olivia Troye worked for me. I fired her. The reason I fired her was her performance had started to drop after six months working on the Task Force as a backbencher.
She was responsible for coordinating meetings, bringing people together. And when the performance level dropped off, I went to the Vice President of the United States and recommended she leave. I'm the one that escorted her off the compound.
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CUOMO: Now, he seems pretty dead-serious, right? Looking at his pedigree, looking at his bearing, seems like he's telling you the truth, right?
Well then how do you explain Troye's post from Instagram on her last day that shows a different relationship with Kellogg? "Love this man. We had a great day today, a great heart to heart today. Such a neat coin! We've been through a lot together on this national security team."
We just so happen to have a guy with firsthand knowledge of the situation inside this Administration. He's the former Chief of Staff for Trump's DHS. He is Miles Taylor.
Welcome back to PRIME TIME. Is the General telling the truth?
MILES TAYLOR, FORMER SENIOR TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL, ENDORSED BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO DHS SECRETARY KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Look, Chris, this is a microcosm of this entire Administration.
The President lies, his lieutenants lie, and he gets people to sully their own good name by lying about things that are clearly, very, very clearly and patently true, and he'll get them to say that they're false.
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And look, I'll tell you why I know a lot about the Olivia Troye saga. I referred Olivia Troye to the Vice President. I referred her for her job, as Homeland Security Adviser to the Vice President. The Vice President himself personally told me she was doing incredible work and thanked me for referring her to his staff.
This year, Keith Kellogg thanked me in a glowing, gushing review, in the Vice President's office. He said that he was so floored with the job Olivia Troye was doing.
Today, he went out there, and he said he fired her with cause, that she had been performing poorly that he had terminated her from the job. All of these things are provably false. Like you said, he's a retired Lieutenant General, who was trotted out by the White House to say this.
But Chris, I'm going to tell you why this happened, and I'll at least tell you why I supposed that this happened. If I was a Comms professional, a Communications professional, in this White House, I would have said "This is not worth us going out to say these things, right? Let the story die."
I think I know why the story didn't die. The President of the United States, very likely today, said to his Communications team that he was so frustrated that so many insiders are speaking out against him, I wouldn't be shocked if he ordered them to go out there, and do this, and they willingly followed his lead.
But I want to tell you, Chris, it's not just the Vice President that's not lied about this, and Kayleigh that's now lied about this, and Keith Kellogg that's now lied about this.
The President himself told multiple lies about Olivia Troye. Just the other day, he said she was low-level. She wasn't. She was the Vice President's Homeland Security Adviser, his top adviser on terrorist attacks and pandemics and natural disasters.
CUOMO: Kellogg says she was a backbencher. He kind of described her as if she were like an administrative assistant.
TAYLOR: Incredibly. And then the President echoed that as though well I've never--
CUOMO: But that's you know for sure that's not true.
TAYLOR: I know for sure that's not true because she was in a very senior job to the Vice President of the United States. Would you want a backbencher, "A backbencher" to be the Vice President's top adviser on major crises? Would anyone want that? Of course, she wasn't.
She was a top adviser with the Vice President and, of course, she cited in her testimonials, meetings with the President where she met him in person. The President lied and said he'd never met her. That was false.
I mean, as Olivia demonstrated, she's been in the room where the President said, he's happy that COVID happened, so he doesn't have to shake the hands of "His disgusting supporters." That is stunning to me, and it shows you where this President's actual priorities are.
He's continued to lie about Olivia Troye by also echoing what Keith Kellogg said that she was terminated. She wasn't terminated from her job. She left on her own accord.
In fact, I'll tell you this. People like Olivia are normally sent to the White House for a one-year detail. They extended her into a second year and beyond because they were so happy with her performance, and the Vice President said he wanted to extend her further. But usually people go back to their home agency after that time period.
So, this has been lie, on top of lie, on top of lie, in this Administration. And it shows you that they're prioritizing politics over pandemic response.
CUOMO: Hey look, here's the easy thing. They had a chance to say this last week. Kellogg was on with Wolf. He didn't say any of this. Why? Why didn't he say it then? Why is he saying it now?
And if you fired her, let's see the paperwork. Let's see the paperwork. Fired is not a word. It's an action. So, where is it? Where is it? I mean that--
TAYLOR: I agree with - I agree with you, Chris.
CUOMO: --that's an easy line.
TAYLOR: Where's - where is the paperwork? And not only that, if there's not paperwork, and these people went out to the microphone, and they said that she was fired with cause, and that she was a bad employee, I don't know the law, I'm not a lawyer--
CUOMO: I do. What's your question?
TAYLOR: --but is that defamatory?
CUOMO: Of course, it's inherently defamatory.
TAYLOR: Is that defamatory?
CUOMO: It is defamatory per se. There are two categories, per se and per quod. Per quod is where it means, to this point, which means you have to show that there was a point of damage that it hurt you.
But there's certain categories, some of them are antiquated, some of them aren't, where per se is all I have to prove is that you said it, and the damage is assumed. One of them is "You're terrible at your job. You're bad in business." So, this fits one of the categories. Let's see what proof they have.
Miles Taylor, you make a compelling case. And I appreciate you doing it here.
TAYLOR: Thanks, Chris.
CUOMO: All right.
Now look, you're going to have to decide for yourself. But if this is what they're doing, to somebody who did the right thing by them, what does it mean for you?
We'll be right back.
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CUOMO: BOLO, Be On the Look-Out for President Trump's healthcare plan. Remember, BOLO means Be On the Look-Out.
This is the plan that he's been promising you for years, the one he always says is almost ready but we have never seen it.
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GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, CHIEF ANCHOR, ABC NEWS: Don't you have to tell people what the plan is?
TRUMP: Yes, well, we'll be announcing that in about two months. Maybe less.
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: You have been in office 3.5 years, you don't have a plan.
TRUMP: Well, we haven't had - excuse me. You heard me yesterday. We're signing a healthcare plan within two weeks.
I have it all ready. And it's a much better plan for you. And it's a much better plan.
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CUOMO: Now, his Press Secretary is in on it too.
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KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It certainly does exist. The President, in the next week or so, will be laying out his vision for healthcare.
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CUOMO: His vision? Remember Kayleigh McEnany, the woman who said this in her first White House briefing.
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MCENANY: I will never lie to you. You have my word on that.
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CUOMO: So much for her word, right? Boy, do people change! Boy, do they change!
Look, maybe it will come out in two weeks. It doesn't take much to pass that test, right? It could be like three pages of intentions.
But that's where the second part of this Be On the Look-Out, this BOLO comes in. If it does come out, you got to take a really close look at it because it's going it matter.
If he seats this Judge, November 10th, they have this case, on the ACA, if those judges don't find severability, meaning that this law can have pieces of it taken out, but the rest remain, he gets what he wants, which is getting rid of Obamacare. That's the easy part.
As my Pop used to say, "Any jackass can kick down a barn. But it takes a good man or woman to build one." What are they building? What will it mean for the 21 million who could lose their health insurance or the 131 million people with pre-existing COVIDs -- condition. Sorry. That was a Freudian parapraxis. COVID is a pre-existing condition.
Be on the lookout. D. Lemon. "CNN TONIGHT" right now. He's on the lookout.
