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VP Mike Pence's Plane Lands Safely After Bird Strike; Food Banks Struggle to Keep Up With Demand As Hunger Soars in the U.S.; FBI Warns Against Foreign Disinformation on Election Results. Aired 7:30- 8a ET

Aired September 23, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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


[07:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: And that's what we've got to get down before we go into the more problematic Winter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Anthony Fauci sounding the alarm on the number of daily cases of coronavirus, he says it's too high right now as we head into the Winter. Joining me now is Dr. James Hamlin; he's a staff writer at "The Atlantic" who just wrote, I think a chilling article titled, "How We Can Survive the Winter".

Dr. Hamblin, thanks so much for being with us. You say, you've been scared about this Winter since last Winter. So before we outline, I think some of your solutions and your guidelines for how we can get through this, I want to know what is so worrisome to you about the Winter season coming up.

JAMES HAMBLIN, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: I'd say I've been concerned, and partly, it's just how respiratory viruses tend to travel. And in past pandemics, what you've seen is sort of patchy outbreaks throughout the Summer, like we had here in big places like New York, and then just big waves overtaking the country in the Winter.

You know, for various somewhat obvious reasons, partly because we're indoors, partly because people are growing fatigued of different behavioral measures, and partly just because it seems like there is something to the weather in the air that actually facilitates spread of viruses, and when these -- when the cold and flu and the coronavirus all hit at the same time, it's a potential for a really potent mix.

BERMAN: And just one comment on the base line that Dr. Fauci is talking about here. We're at 40,000 cases heading into this season. We were like much lower cases heading into the Summer which should have been an easier season. I think that's why he's so worried. What do you see?

HAMBLIN: Yes, well, as a country, we got somewhat lower. You know, Dr. Fauci told me three weeks ago when we were sitting in the mid-30s up to around 40,000 cases, he said, we need to get this down to 10,000 cases a day for him to feel comfortable and in control in the next few weeks.

So that's been three weeks ago, yesterday, we were at 48,000, so we're going up from the 40,000 base line. That is concerning for a lot of reasons, but mainly because if you're going to try to test and trace and track and contain local outbreaks, you need to start at a much lower base line. When you have 50,000, a 100,000 cases a day, it's just -- the measures that you can take about shutting down are much less precise.

BERMAN: So, let's put up your solutions here because this is I think what people can take away from this. You have some ideas. You say, "accept reality, plan for more shutdowns, live like you're contagious, build for the pandemic and hunt the virus".

The first three there are sort of all of one family here, which is we just have to live our lives like there's real problem here and like it's still a real threat. What does that mean, say for the holidays? There's new guidance on Halloween, kids shouldn't trick or treat, it says, but what about Thanksgiving? What about Christmas? What do we need to not do then?

HAMBLIN: You know, especially for people who are in cold areas, who are planning on having a multi-generational gathering of people traveling from across the country and gathering indoors for prolonged periods, I think that is just going to be an extremely dangerous situation. And it's very tough to deal with because it's part of our culture, but we saw surges over Summer holidays where people were largely outdoors.

So people coming together at Thanksgiving or Christmas, New Year's. In places where they have to be indoors, you know, I would plan ahead to just try to create some new traditions this year and see family before and after, you know, it's warm enough to be outdoors, but be really cautious about the holidays.

BERMAN: Yes, it turns out it's easy to convince kids to do Christmas months earlier if you want to. It's not a hard sell. You talk about bundling treatments or bundling ways to fight the pandemic. There are a lot of people depending on a vaccine, but what you say is we have to look at something as more of a combination of factors, explain.

HAMBLIN: Yes, exactly. This is a concept from preventive medicine, and it has to do with kind of rejecting any of these ideas that you're hearing from the president and elsewhere about a vaccine coming in and just ending the pandemic.

You know, as Dr. Fauci has also acknowledged, a vaccine will most likely be partially effective, it won't give you a 100 percent guarantee that you can never get this virus, and it won't immediately go to everyone. It will be part -- it will be a tool in our package along with masking, distancing, partial at-home work, you know, high- level testing protocols, keeping people outside as much as possible. All these things add up and none of them is perfect.

But when you do them together and you plan to continue to do them in a sustained and rigorous way, you could keep cases, you know, in relative control through the Winter.

BERMAN: So what else -- what else do we need to do to get through these months, and they could be long months?

[07:35:00]

HAMBLIN: Yes, the basic, most important thing is accepting that this is going to be with us, and all the things that you're doing right now, even if there's a vaccine that becomes available to some people, say, in January, which would be wonderful, if everything goes extremely well, that is not going to change the game.

This is going to be a pandemic where, you know, we hope that cities and neighborhoods and businesses don't have to go back to totally shutting down, but we should plan as though they're going to. Have plans for de-escalating opening in the same way that we had plans for escalating opening, so that we don't have to just shut everything down right at the same time.

The worst mistake we can make is to assume that because things are going well or because a neighborhood or a city where you are is opening, that it's going to continue apace. It might level off, it might have -- it might have to go back and shelter in place for a little while.

BERMAN: Yes, plan as a society, plan as a family, plan as an individual. Dr. James Hamblin, as I said, the article is just a terrific read. I learned a ton. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

HAMBLIN: Thank you for having me.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, John, we want to remember now some of the nearly 201,000 Americans lost to coronavirus. Fifty six-year- old Dan Balsiger and his wife, Judy, were married 22 years, they have two daughters.

Friends remember him as a dedicated volunteer softball coach. They tell "NBC" San Diego, he asked them to spread the word about the virus. He told them, quote, "this thing is real, it's no joke". Fifty- one-year-old Jerry Jones was a paramedic in Volusia County, Florida for more than 20 years, about the same length of time his sister, Shyla Pennington was an elementary school teacher -- or teacher's assistant.

The news journal reports they died just a day apart. Colleagues describe Pennington as caring and selfless with students. Jones was remembered as a gentle giant with an amazing bedside manner. Tommy DeVito was a founding member of the Four Seasons. The band portrayed in the hit musical "Jersey Boys", a group formed in

1960, they had four number one hits including "Sherry", "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Walk Like a Man". DeVito was 92 when he died in Las Vegas on Monday. We'll be right back.

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[07:40:00]

CAMEROTA: Developing this morning, there was a midair scare for Air Force 2, carrying Vice President Mike Pence. It was forced to return to an airport in New Hampshire last night after a bird strike -- did you see that, John?

BERMAN: I did.

CAMEROTA: OK, so, that was a bird strike. The plane was about -- was able to then land safely. I don't know if you can see -- it's jumping around a bit, but you see -- yes --

BERMAN: You see that?

CAMEROTA: That's what you see. The little sparks flying. It was a bird. It was able to fly back to Washington following a campaign rally. The Vice President and his staffers used a cargo plane to return to D.C.

BERMAN: Yes, no comment from the bird though this morning. Food Banks in New York City facing unprecedented demand as hunger soars in the pandemic. Now, one pantry that serves thousands of families says it can't keep going without immediate help. CNN's Alexandra Field joins us now with the latest, and food banks and pantries around the country, Alexandra are facing such challenges.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, John. Look, when everyone who could go home did go home, the campaign against hunger was out there putting food on tables where very suddenly, there was none. Now the city is still reeling from that crisis and the campaign against hunger is facing its own very real crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD (voice-over): Need is still soaring among New Yorkers months after the city bent the COVID curve.

MELONY SAMUELS, FOUNDER, THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST HUNGER: This was without any kind of warning. I thought, two weeks, that's it, everything is back to normal. And here we are, six months now, devastated, still panicking and it just seems to be getting worse.

FIELD: Melony Samuels started New York City's campaign against hunger 21 years ago, CNN visited her back in April as the virus gripped the city.

SAMUELS: We are flabbergasted about what's going on. FIELD: Back then, food lines stretched for blocks. The Campaign

Against Hunger was providing a whopping 250,000 meals a week. Today, the number is 315,000 meals a week. Soon, it could come to a screeching halt.

SAMUELS: You talk about somebody that needs a miracle, the Campaign Against Hunger needs a miracle right now.

FIELD: Since April, the organization's small pantry and three pop-up sites have been replaced by this giant warehouse and 250 different partner sites.

GUADALUPE RIVERA, DELIVERS PANTRY MEALS: With my condo right now, we feed 52 families.

FIELD: But the warehouse is on loan. It won't be available after October, and Samuels says they can't afford the space they now need.

SAMUELS: Just imagine me October 30th, I'll be on the streets, the Campaign Against Hunger will be on the streets.

FIELD: Since COVID hit, Samuels says they've provided 8.6 million meals compared to 3 million in an average year. Natalie Nevins comes to one of their pantries every week.

NATALIE NEVINS, DEPENDS ON FOOD PANTRY: I have five kids that are depending on me, so I have to be out here to make sure they have something to eat because at the end of the day, mommy have to be there for them.

FIELD: She says two of her children have lost jobs because of COVID.

NEVINS: And one used to work at the airport and another one, she worked in Dunkin' Donuts and everybody was laid off.

FIELD: The strain of a virus still spiking across the country seen at food pantries from Georgia down through Florida. In Texas, cars lined up for miles and in California, people waiting for food and standing 6 feet apart. According to feeding America, between March and June, roughly four out of ten people who visited food banks have never received food assistance before COVID.

SAMUELS: I never thought America would be a place of need. We have heard about the place of opportunity, but honestly, hunger is real.

[07:45:00]

FIELD: And to really fight it, the Campaign Against Hunger needs a place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: Melony Samuels started the Campaign Against Hunger by feeding just one woman who needed help. During the COVID crisis, she says she has fed 1 million New Yorkers. John, this is a woman who can move mountains and she's going to keep fighting. BERMAN: And we all can help obviously, food banks in our own areas.

Alexandra Field, thank you so much for being with us. A new report this morning on Russian attacks on the U.S. election. The efforts to undermine Joe Biden and undermine confidence in the election. The "New York Times" reports that Russian intelligence is finding that President Trump is doing their work for them.

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[07:50:00]

CAMEROTA: A new warning from the FBI, just 41 days before election day, the bureau says foreign actors and cyber criminals could exploit the time required to certify and announce election results by disseminating disinformation that includes reports of voter suppression, cyber attacks, targeting election infrastructure, voter or ballot fraud and other problems intended to convince the public of the election's illegitimacy.

Joining us now is Alex Gibney; he's an Emmy; an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has a brand new documentary called "Agents of Chaos", it debuts tonight exclusively on "HBO" and "HBO Max". Alex, great to see you. It couldn't be more timely --

ALEX GIBNEY, PRODUCER, WRITER & DIRECTOR, AGENTS OF CHAOS: Good to see you, Alisyn --

CAMEROTA: Everything that you have investigated for "Agents of Chaos", I'm guessing that the FBI warning comes as no surprise to you after you've spent years looking at what Russia did in the 2016 election.

GIBNEY: No, it really doesn't. I mean, for the 2016 election, past this prolong, I mean, so many things that the Russians did and the way they took advantage of certain flaws in our system in 2016 are now coming back to haunt us again in 2020. I mean, in 2016, you know, Donald Trump on the -- on the stump kept saying, you know, if I lose, the election is going to be rigged.

And the Russians were in election systems not to flip votes, but to sow doubt on the legitimacy of what they -- what everyone saw as an inevitable Hillary Clinton win. Today again, Donald Trump is casting doubt on the legitimacy or the -- or the accuracy of results if he were to lose. And so once again, I believe that the Russians by a cyber means will amplify our own president's attempts to undermine confidence in the system.

CAMEROTA: In fact, according to "The New York Times" yesterday, it's already happening. And in fact, what David Sanger's reporting suggests is that President Trump is making it easier this time for Russian trolls.

They are working from home as he says. Because what they -- when they -- before, they used to have to come up with, you know, creative conspiracy theories out of whole cloth. Now, what they're doing is lifting President Trump's Twitter feed. That's where they're getting their material, and I know that you and "Agents of Chaos" are no stranger to the Internet Research Agency as they call themselves. What is that?

GIBNEY: The Internet Research Agency is a private enterprise run by a guy named Yevgeny Prigozhin who is also known as Putin's chef. And this is a man who has been given via federal contracts a lot of money from Vladimir Putin over the years, and he does off the books operations. So that gives Vladimir Putin deniability.

And the IRA was the center for all of the troll activity that was conducted on social media in 2016 and, you know, it turned out to be effective. But again, going back to what you were saying, Alisyn, it affected not so much in terms of injecting something new in the blood stream of the American politics, but by exacerbating and inflaming passions that were already here.

So, you know, in the case of Donald Trump, you know, the film is called "Agents of Chaos", and I think that one of the key agents of chaos is Donald Trump. Russia never supported his candidacy because of policies, they supported his candidacy because his candidacy -- because they felt that he was an agent of chaos who would do a lot to take a wrecking ball to American institutions.

CAMEROTA: Let's watch a little portion of "Agents of Change" on this very topic -- sorry, chaos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, people ask was the IRA pro-Trump? I think that's a tricky question. The IRA was anti-America. In general, they were interested in any message that weakens the democratic institutions of the U.S. Create chaos was the primary goal, weakening Hillary's messages and position and identity and amplifying Donald Trump's campaign is a good means to create this chaos. I think its target is trust.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, again, the title is "Agents of Chaos". And so, I mean, it sounds like they've only kind of perfected their practice since 2016. So what should we know as we head into 2020 now?

GIBNEY: We should be aware. I mean, we should be on the lookout for disinformation. And dig down deep when you hear reports and make sure that, you know, we rely on outlets that we end up trusting. But the word should be trust but verify.

[07:55:00]

I mean, you know, there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation in social media, and to some extent even in mainstream media. We have to be cautious and insist on fact-based reports that we can rely on to guide our actions.

CAMEROTA: I think that, you know, there was so much reporting around the Mueller report, and I think that in many places, Americans reached sort of saturation level or what they considered a saturation level with trying to understand Russian interference. From your investigation of putting this special together, what surprised you still? What did you learn?

GIBNEY: Well, I learned a couple of things. One, how big and pervasive was the Russian attack, and also how much the candidacy of Donald Trump revolved around corruption and venality in ways that kind of put a lie to sort of the Manchurian candidate stereotype of, you know, the whole Russia thing as Donald Trump likes to call it.

You know, one of the key things that we learned was that Donald Trump was praising Vladimir Putin on the campaign trail, not for any policy reasons, but because he was attempting to get rich off of Trump Tower in Moscow, and that deal was very much on the table.

Right on up to Donald Trump's surprising election which even surprised Vladimir Putin, you know, until, you know, Donald Trump went to his backup plan which was president of the United States.

CAMEROTA: I mean, this is exactly what Michael Cohen, you know, who the self-described fixer for President Trump says the same thing. Sometimes it's just the simple explanation, you know? Instead of all the complicated explanations, it's the Trump Tower, he wanted to build Trump Tower in Moscow, maybe that's why he's long been currying favor with Putin.

GIBNEY: And running for president is a way of inflating your brand. I mean, you know, we have in the film Felix Sater who was working with Michael Cohen in order to put that Moscow Trump Tower deal together. And he says very much the same thing.

CAMEROTA: I know that you did also had the chance to sit down with one of Robert Mueller's prosecutors, at least, one, and you know, that -- Andrew Weissmann is in your film and he's also talked to "The Washington Post" yesterday in which he basically says that the Mueller team could have done more. Is that the upshot?

GIBNEY: I think that the -- it's fair to say that the Mueller report failed in this respect. They did a reasonably good job of investigating, though they probably didn't rely sufficiently on subpoenas, particularly when it came to the president of the United States.

But the big failure was not telling a story, and that allowed, you know, Attorney General Barr to take advantage of that lack of story- telling, you know, skill, to misrepresent the conclusions of the report. And I think the report pretty definitively does suggest that there was collusion or cooperation -- let's use cooperation or what Tim Desnyder(ph) says in the film, seduction between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. There was no red phone, there was no legal conspiracy, but there was a lot of crosstalk and cooperative support.

CAMEROTA: Well, Alex Gibney, great to talk to you, the documentary is fantastic. I had a chance to watch part one of it, it's really revealing and everybody can watch the two-part documentary "Agents of Chaos" tonight at 9:00 p.m. on "HBO" and "HBO Max". We should note that "HBO" is owned by CNN's parent company Warner Media. Alex, great to see you.

GIBNEY: Great to see you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: The idea of 200,000 deaths is really very sobering.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president writes off the 200,000 people as nameless statistics. But these were people. They had names, they had lives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The FDA apparently planning to come out with some new tougher standards on approval of that vaccine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republican senators are falling in line with federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett looking like the clear frontrunner.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): What I intend to do is to proceed with the consideration process.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This process totally lacks legitimacy. The Republican majority has broken its word.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: And good morning everyone, welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. A warning from Dr. Anthony Fauci, 40,000 new coronavirus cases a day is far too high as we get closer to Winter, 22 states this morning are seeing a rise in their cases.

Those are the ones represented in red and orange on your screen. And yesterday marked another day of nearly 40,000 new cases and almost a thousand more deaths. What does President Trump have to say about the more than 200,000 Americans killed? Well, he now calls it a shame. You'll remember he had said it is what it is.

BERMAN: New this morning.