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New Day

U.S. Death Toll Nears 200,000, Trump Claims Virus Affects Virtually Nobody; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Says, Republicans Have the Votes to Confirm Trump Nominee. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 22, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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


[07:00:00]

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

A terrible milestone for the United States. This morning, we will pass 200,000 deaths from coronavirus. America has suffered more deaths in this pandemic than Europe and the entire continents of Asia and Africa combined.

But President Trump considers those 200,000 people killed, quote, nobody. That's how he referred to them last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Now we know it, it affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems, if they have other problems, that's what it really affects, that's it. You know, in some states, thousands of people, nobody young, below the age of 18, like, nobody.

It affects virtually nobody. It's an amazing thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: None of that is true. Why would any leader congratulate himself on that level of loss?

Overnight, Dr. Anthony Fauci made clear, this is something to mourn, not celebrate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We have in this country now close to 200,000 deaths. We have 6 million plus infections. You can't look at that and say, that's terrific.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well, President Trump does. He thinks having the highest death toll in the world is some kind of twisted accomplishment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We've done a phenomenal job, not just a good job, a phenomenal job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: We have new developments this morning in the Supreme Court vacancy. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, now says Republicans have the votes to confirm President Trump's nominee. Of course, they don't know who that is, but they have the votes.

Then the idea is to do it, presumably, before the election. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a top contender, met with the president at the White House for a substantial period of time yesterday.

Millions of Americans risk losing their health care because of a Supreme Court case that the court will hear just days after the election.

We also have breaking news this morning from Washington Post Columnist Josh Rogin about the extent that Russia is trying to interfere in the 2020 election. Actually, the news isn't just in the extent, it's in the role that Vladimir Putin is directly playing in the effort. We will speak to Josh Rogin, who has new reporting on a top-secret CIA assessment at this hour.

We're going to start though with CNN's Brynn Gingras on the pandemic's horrifying toll. We are probably hours away, Brynn, from passing the 200,000 mark.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: yes, it's a grim milestone that we didn't think we'd get here and we shouldn't be here, John. We know that all too well.

Well, listen, from day one, we know that the president has downplayed this pandemic. He has said and remains steadfast, saying that he has done a phenomenal job, as you just heard, in handling this crises, even as we are still in it.

This as nearly half the country seeing the number of cases in their state go up, the infection rate is going up and we are getting closer, just inching hours away from that grim milestone of 200,000 deaths because of this pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GINGRAS: As the United States approaches another grim milestone, President Trump continued to downplay the pandemic's impact, saying that in some areas --

TRUMP: It affects virtually nobody. It's an amazing thing.

GINGRAS: But the coronavirus has killed nearly 200,000 people in the U.S. FAUCI: The numbers are telling. We have in this country now, you know, close to 200,000 deaths. We have 6 million plus infections. You can't look at that and say that's terrific.

GINGRAS: Trump once again claiming without proof that the pandemic will soon be over.

TRUMP: By the way, we're rounding the corner in any event. But we're going to have a vaccine very soon.

GINGRAS: In Wisconsin, Joe Biden urging Americans to avoid becoming numb to the staggering toll of the pandemic.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You can't lose the ability to feel the sorrow and the loss and the anger for so many lives lost. You can't let the numbers become statistics and background noise.

GINGRAS: The Democratic nominee also blaming Trump for mishandling the crisis.

BIDEN: He froze. He failed to act. He panicked. And America has paid the worst price of any nation in the world.

GINGRAS: This morning, at least 24 states are seeing an increase in new cases over the past week.

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: After previous holiday weekends, Memorial Day, the 4th of July, now Labor Day, we have seen increases in cases.

[07:05:00]

And in addition to that, over the last several weeks, students have been returning to college and university campuses. And those have also become super-spreader settings.

GINGRAS: Meanwhile, the CDC added and then reversed new information from its website, saying the coronavirus could be spread, quote, through respiratory droplets or small particles, such as those in aerosols, produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, sings, talks or breathes. The agency claiming the information was a draft posted in error.

DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: It feeds into the issue of trust. I worry about people questioning great science that CDC puts out because they're not sure what's great science and what has the fingerprints of politics all over it.

GINGRAS: Dr. Anthony Fauci stressing how important it is to keep guidance, like wearing masks, out of politics.

FAUCI: Wearing a mask or not is a political statement. And that's really very unfortunate, totally unfortunate, because this is a purely public health issue.

(END VIDEOTAPE) GINGRAS: And health experts are trying to decipher if the surge in cases is coming from the summer holidays, kids going back to school, or is this the start to the fall and the flu season? Regardless, of course, we're coming up on some major holidays.

First up is Halloween and the CDC is now recommending, Alisyn, that kids don't go trick or treating door-to-door for this Halloween. And also, they remind them that a scary mask, a costume mask is not a substitute for a cloth mask. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Okay, Brynn, thank you very much for all of that.

Joining us now is CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, this day was the day that we hoped would never come, but we didn't know how we would avoid it given that there's no national plan. So 200,000 Americans this morning, we believe, we will reach that milestone.

And, you know, I mean, in terms of not getting numb to it, I think it's kind of a personal defense mechanism, that it's hard to stay at that sustained level of grief every day. So, of course, people turn away and do become a little bit numb. But what are your thoughts this morning?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, I feel the same way. It's -- it's really challenging. And I talked to a lot of families who have lost people due to this disease. I stay in touch with them, stay in touch with them over the last several months, we sort of lean on each other. And you know, it's -- it's one of those things.

I was talking to someone a couple of nights ago and this idea that so many of these deaths could have been prevented is absolutely true. We've seen, you know, the United States death toll compared to other countries around the world. I can tell you, many of the families that I talk to don't want to hear that, because no one likes to think of their loved one having died a preventable death.

But it is true. Countries who have not had therapeutics or vaccines and stuff like that have been able to keep their death toll, obviously, a lot lower than the United States. I think the message they asked me to send, and I think it's important to remind people of is, you know, we're still very much in this. We would like to think about, you know, we hit these milestones and we think, well, we'll look back and we're sort of through this, and we're not. So there's still so many opportunities to still save so many lives.

When you look at what happened in 1918, which is probably the closest model, right, to what we have going on right now, the first wave, which lasted about six months, 75,000 people died. It was that second wave -- almost went back down to low numbers. It was that second wave and 195,000 people died in a single month, and that month was October. So that is exactly what we have to sort of avoid here, you know, having those sorts of significant surges again with this pandemic. BERMAN: Sanjay, forgive me for getting personal here, but you know people. There are people that you care about who have died to coronavirus. I'm thinking about Charlotte Figi and her family with whom you had a relationship with years.

So what was it like to hear the president overnight refer to people who have died from coronavirus or the number of deaths, that nobody, it affects nobody?

GUPTA: You know, it's strangely minimizing and really, I think, deeply offensive, obviously, to these families. I mean, this is a disease that doesn't affect young people as much, but it does affect young people. We know thousands of people have become infected. Thousands have been hospitalized, and, you know, if you start looking at people under the age of 24, hundreds have died.

So we also know people who get infected, they may recover from the infection but they can still have long-term symptoms from this.

The point is that we really shouldn't be in a position of minimizing this right now. We have to sort of do everything we can to prevent those hospitalizations from occurring. And, you know, I'm really worried as we go back into the colder weather and go back into people primarily being inside and returning to school, but the impact on younger people is going to go up.

[07:10:07]

Thankfully, it is lower in terms of likelihood of getting very sick or dying from this infection, but it's not by any means zero, low but not zero. And it's something we have to keep in mind. I think about it personally because of people that I've known. I think about my own girls going out into the world and the likelihood that they may get sick or bring the virus back home to us. These are all real considerations that families are thinking about right now.

CAMEROTA: I mean, Sanjay, the president said this affects elderly people with heart problems, and below the age of 18, like nobody. He's just wrong. On every level, he's wrong. It affects people even without underlying health conditions. It affects middle-aged people, people in their 20s have died, people in their 30s, people in their 40s. He's just wrong. And, of course, it gives the impression that we're not in good hands.

So we're not in good hands, obviously, with the president because he gives out false information, and then, Sanjay, all this CDC stuff where they keep changing their guidance, and I don't even understand why they're changing it.

I mean, here is one example of schools reopening. On July 23rd, the CDC recommended social distancing and closing schools if the virus is detected. Four days later, they dropped their reference to social distancing. Why? Why? We know we're supposed to stay six feet apart. What is the CDC doing at this point?

GUPTA: Yes. This is -- I mean, so I talked to folks at the CDC quite a bit. You know, there are several people that I talk to on a regular basis. And they have sounded the alarm for me on various things over the past few months. One of them was the document that just sort of landed on their website, the importance of reopening schools. The other one was the idea that asymptomatic people don't need to be tested. That was wrong and that was reversed.

And now this most recent thing, which sort of showed up on the website on Friday that said there's now concern about aerosolization, aerosol being a mode of transmission for this virus. And then it was just removed. This latest sort of back and forth with the CDC seems to be a genuine error.

And, again, people that I've talked to have called me in the past and told me, this was wrong. In this case, they said, this one seems to be a genuine error. But, Alisyn, your point is a good one, there is hardly any trust right now, even among public health officials who primarily relied on the CDC for their guidance in terms of their public health decisions.

I think the other thing to keep in mind is that aerosols, according to the science, what reflects the science is that that is way this virus can spread, to be clear, aerosols. And that means that -- people say it's airborne. I think people conflate all these different terms. When you cough or sneeze and put respiratory droplets into the air, yes, it is going through the air, that is different than an aerosol, which means that the virus particles get suspended in the air, can linger, it can travel beyond six feet.

That is why a choir singing could have infected so many people. That is why people who go to various places and have no idea how they may have become infected, that's how they may be getting infected. This is more about the idea that people need to wear masks when they go indoors versus transmission alone. We need to be wearing masks indoors. That's why that data showed. Why it was taken down? We're still not entirely sure. Hopefully they'll put it back up.

BERMAN: And we immediate to wear masks probably indoors for a long time, Sanjay. Dr. Anthony Fauci, overnight, made clear that he thinks we will be and should be wearing masks probably for all of 2021.

GUPTA: Yes, that's the thing. People talk about the vaccine, which I think people are optimistic about, although we still haven't seen data on that. That's another issue that people have, creating all of these schedules and the sort of being optimistic about it, and I am as well. But we haven't seen the data from this phase three trial. It's a blinded trial. No one has really seen this data yet.

But I think what Dr. Fauci has said, what others have said as well is that it's not going to flip a switch even when the vaccine comes and that wearing masks indoors, especially now with the knowledge that this can spread through the aerosols is going to be important for some time to come. Until we get to that, you know, 60, 70 percent at least of the country being immunized and staying immunized, it's going to be hard to let our guard down.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, thank you very much for helping us try to understand what's happening today on this important day and this horrible milestone.

Also, join CNN Today for Citizen by CNN. This is a virtual conference. It features interviews with guests like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Loretta Lynch, NBA star Chris Paul, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. They're all going to be discussing an array of issues that matter to voters six weeks before Election Day. So you can watch a live stream of this starting at 9:00 A.M. Eastern Time on CNN.com. As soon as John and I get off the air, just switch right over to that.

Meanwhile, President Trump has not even announced his Supreme Court nominee yet, but top Republicans, top Senate Republicans are already saying the pick will be confirmed before the November election.

[07:15:08]

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): The nominee is going to be supported by every Republican in the Judiciary Committee and we've got the votes to confirm the judge, the justice on the floor of the Senate before the election and that's what's coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: There you go. Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham saying that Republicans have the votes to confirm President Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election. Of course, Graham saying but not even knowing who the nominee is. President Trump is expected to announce the pick later this week.

Joining us now, CNN Political Analyst Maggie Haberman, she's a White House Correspondent for The New York Times. Maggie, good morning to you.

What's the latest? I mean, what's the latest? We know Amy Coney Barrett, who is seen as the leading contender, was at the White House for a long time yesterday. Is she number one and where are the votes?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: She is number one. And I think she's going to stay number one, John. I think that you might hear from a president who likes to create suspense and drama around all of his picks, some whispers that it could be somebody else.

[07:20:05]

But it is very likely going to be Amy Coney Barrett, barring, you know, the unforeseen.

He is getting pressure from some advisers to consider Barbara Lagoa of Florida. As the president himself has said sort of bluntly, she is Hispanic, and that is one of the things, and she's from Florida, and those are two qualities that some of his advisers think would be helpful to him politically.

But as we have seen repeatedly, he tends to sort of burrow into what evangelicals want and what Christian conservatives want over and over, and he thinks that that is Coney Barrett.

Where the votes are? Look, Graham is pretty blunt that they are talking about voting before they know who the nominee is. And they clearly know who it is likely to be.

There are a couple of outstanding questions, John, that we don't know the answer to. One is, where is Mitt Romney on this? He has said he wants to wait until after today when McConnell speaks at the Senate GOP lunch, to see what McConnell Rationale is.

Romney is obviously not a fan of Donald Trump's style, and yet he represents a very conservative state. So I think there are going to be pressures on him to vote with the caucus.

CAMEROTA: It's just very interesting to hear Senator Lindsey Graham say it doesn't matter who the nominee is, basically, is what he's saying. That person is -- we're going to vote --

HABERMAN: That's literally exactly what he said.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And, by the way, last night, President Trump appeared to be crowd sourcing his decision for who to pick. This is how he was going to decide. Watch this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Who would like to see a woman justice of the Supreme Court? Who would like to see a male justice of the Supreme Court? The only one I hear there are women-- some women. What's that all about?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Okay, woman it is.

HABERMAN: This is what he does and we have seen him do repeatedly when he has faced with a choice he has to make. He did this at a fundraiser in the Hamptons in New York in 2016 over the summer when he was on the verge of picking Mike Pence as his running mate but he still threw out a bunch of names to attendees. He does this to rev up the crowd. It has very little bearing, I think, on what he's ultimately going to do, and that is going to be pick Coney Barrett. The question is when.

There are some people pushing him to do it before Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in state. His instinct actually has been to wait and do it at least after part of the memorials for her. We'll see who wins, in his thinking (ph).

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, Maggie, on that front, why not wait? I mean, since Lindsey Graham is saying that they're all going to rubber stamp it regardless, it's not going to take long to have a confirmation hearing, why even have one, by the way, since they already said they're going to rubber stamp it? Why wouldn't wait (ph)?

HABERMAN: Because even when Lindsey Graham says that, it's still a breakneck pace for a confirmation.

Things come up in confirmations, right? Look at what we saw with the Kavanaugh confirmation. Republicans have criticized the claims by Christine Blasey Ford as not being true and he criticized how the Democrats handled it, but it was something unexpectedly came up and it prolonged the process.

So you don't know exactly what you're dealing with, even though she has been vetted. And I think that there are people who just don't want him to take any more time. This would be an historically fast nomination if it goes through.

BERMAN: Look, and the risk they run is -- I'm not saying this will happen, but what if Joe Biden wins big? What if Democrats win big in the Senate? It's the risk they run by having the confirmation, either right before or right after Election Day, is it just looks incongruous to the will -- quote, unquote, will of the American people. Now, I'm not saying that will happen but that is clearly the risk.

Maggie, you were saying the president's instinct is to wait for some of the services for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. On the other hand though, he doesn't seem overly deferential to the sentiments of the family. He was mocking the notion that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dying days, said she wanted whoever wins the election to pick her replacement. He mocked that. He openly questioned it.

And what needed to happen? Ruth Bader Ginsburg's granddaughter did an interview overnight with the BBC, explaining exactly what happened. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARA SPERA, RUTH BADER GINSBURG'S GRANDDAUGHTER: I asked her if there was anything she wanted to say to the public, to anyone, that wasn't already out there, and she said there was. And I pulled out my computer and she dictated the following sentence to me. She said, my most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed. And I read it back to her, she was very happy with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The president questioned that and now there is this conspiracy theory flowing on social media with the president saying, despite hearing from Ruth Bader Ginsburg's granddaughter.

[07:25:01]

HABERMAN: Right. He is very good, as you know, of trying to create his own reality. It is incredibly insensitive to a grieving family for the president to -- even if he doesn't agree with it, even if he doesn't want to say, yes, I think that's what we should do, there is a midway point between, you know, not saying anything and mocking it outright, number one. Number two, as you say, it has now become this rallying cry among his supporters that I expect we will hear in the coming weeks.

CAMEROTA: Maggie, there was also this interesting moment at a rally in Ohio. The lieutenant governor there, Jon Husted, was trying to gin up the crowd to sell Trump merchandise. He is a President Trump supporter and I think that he was trying to say, buy these hats and MAGA hats and MAGA T-shirts. And we can even have a MAGA mask that you could wear into the supermarkets so everybody can see. And watch what the crowd did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GOV. JON HUSTED (R-OH): But if you go into a grocery store where you've got to wear one, all right -- hang on, hang on, just listen up. Just listen up. All right, I get it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: This is how they turn on a Trump supporter who suggests wearing a mask out in public to protect other people.

HABERMAN: The president has been denigrating mask wearing with very few exceptions for the better of -- it has been six, but certainly five months, long after, yes, it is true, not everybody in the beginning encouraged mask wearing and that includes Dr. Fauci. Dr. Fauci changed on that after a couple of weeks.

The president has spent lots of time instilling distrust in his supporters among people who recommend things like wearing masks. And this is a Republican, as you say, who is there saying, this is a supporter of the president, saying, this is a good idea.

But that is not really something the president does, because at his rallies more often than not, he makes fun of Joe Biden for how he wears a mask, so that is how the president's supporters take the ball and run with it.

BERMAN: Maggie, they're wrapping me, but I don't know when the next time I'm going to talk to you is, and I'm just not willing to take the risk --

CAMEROTA: So he's going to ignore that.

BERMAN: I'm not willing to take the risk if I don't hear from you before the debate. In 20 seconds or less, what do we know about the president's debate prep, which is now just kind of a week away?

HABERMAN: Very little, John. It's been shrouded in secrecy. We just know that there is some form of it going on. Aides have tried in the last couple of weeks to suggest that they're really doing it with him on the fly. They're trying to go over things with him on the plane, when he's traveling places, that they are doing very few, if any, formal sessions.

I have to believe that is going to change in the next week, if it has not already. Because the one thing that a lot of people around the president realize is, for all of their efforts to try to say that Joe Biden can't string a sentence together or is half asleep half the time, they know he had a pretty solid debate against Bernie Sanders. You even heard the president say it.

So one-on-one debating, Joe Biden has a history of doing well and I think that is something they're bearing in mind as they head into next week.

BERMAN: Maggie Haberman, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Now you're ready to follow instructions.

BERMAN: If this is the last time we talk, Maggie, it was worth it. That's the way I feel it.

HABERMAN: Last time forever, that's it.

BERMAN: Nice to see you.

HABERMAN: Bye, guys.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking news, The Washington Post Columnist Josh Rogin reporting on a new top secret CIA assessment on the extent that Vladimir Putin is now directly involved in interfering in the 2020 election to denigrate Joe Biden. We have the breaking details, next.

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