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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Laying Groundwork to Challenge Election Results; Sources: Trump Intends to Nominate Amy Coney Barrett to Supreme Court; Coronavirus Cases in U.S. Reach 7 Million, Most in the World. Aired 4- 4:30p ET

Aired September 25, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We begin with some breaking news on the U.S. Supreme Court. President Donald Trump intends to choose Amy Coney Barrett to be the new Supreme Court justice, according to multiple senior Republican sources with knowledge of the process.

Judge Barrett is a federal judge and Notre Dame law professor with a conservative record. She's also a former law clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

CNN's Pamela Brown and Ariane de Vogue are breaking this story for us right now.

Pamela, what are you learning?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, my colleague Jamie Gangel and I have learned that President Trump intends to choose Amy Coney Barrett to be the new Supreme Court justice.

This is according to multiple senior Republican sources with knowledge of the process. Now, in conversations with some senior Republican allies on the Hill, the White House has indicated, suggested that Barrett is the intended nominee, these sources said.

But we should note, all sources have caution, Jake, that until it is announced by the president, there is always that possibility that he could make a last-minute change. But the expectation, as of now, nearly 24 hours away from that announcement, is that Judge Barrett is the choice.

And he's scheduled to make that announcement tomorrow afternoon. She's been the leading choice throughout this week, since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. She's the only potential nominee known to have met with the president in the White House in-person this week, according to two of the sources, and one source said that Trump was familiar with Barrett already, as we know he had met with her previously. He has met with her twice this time around this week. She had been the top contender last time there was a vacancy. She was seen at her South Bend, Indiana, home on Friday. We should note it's not clear if she had been told that she is the choice, the intended nominee.

Often, that is done as late as possible to maintain secrecy around the announcement. But as one source told me, Jake, the machinery is in motion.

In previous nomination announcements, the White House had multiple rollouts planned just in case the president made a last-minute decision to switch to another candidate. But one source said it would be surprising if there were a change, since allies are already being told.

But, again, anything could happen between now and the announcement, given the unpredictable nature of this president -- Jake.

TAPPER: Indeed. Nothing's official until it's official. This is what sources expect that he will do. But President Trump could change his mind.

Ariane, what would this mean for the Supreme Court, presuming that Amy Coney Barrett were confirmed? What would this mean for the makeup of the court? What would it make mean for Roe v. Wade? What would it mean for Obamacare? What would it mean for all sorts of issues?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Right, Jake.

This would be a dream pick for the religious right. She's young. She's 48 years old. She would be the youngest member on this court. Of course, it's a life tenure position. She is in the mold of Justice Scalia. We know how important that is to President Trump.

In fact, she's a former clerk of Scalia. And she was one of his favorites. She sat and sits on an appeals court based out of Chicago. Before that, she taught at Notre Dame. And keep in mind, she has met with Trump, and she has been fully vetted.

There were some people who wanted Barrett to take the seat that eventually went to Kavanaugh. They really wanted her for that seat. At the time, people thought, well, then she would probably be a good replacement for Ginsburg if that seat ever opened up.

Another thing to keep in mind is, during her confirmation hearing for the lower court, the Democrats, particularly Dianne Feinstein, really went after her Catholic faith and ask some pointed questions. After that, Jake, it was conservatives -- it really galvanized them.

And they were furious, saying that was the Democrats showing anti- Catholic bias. Keep in mind, Jake, the term is supposed to begin the first Monday in October. A week after the election, the court is going to hear Obamacare. And when she -- in 2017, she wrote a law review article. And she was very skeptical of Chief Justice John Roberts' reasoning

back in the days when he saved Obamacare. So that's going to worry them, the Democrats.

TAPPER: All right, Pamela, Ariane, thank you so much for that breaking news.

President Trump has made clear he wants to fill this seat quickly, since he sees the court as potentially having a role in determining the winner of the presidential election.

President Trump and his allies have been stoking fear and seeking to undermine public confidence in the election, concerning even Trump allies in Congress and elsewhere that the president is setting the stage to reject a potential election loss.

The president's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, today claiming -- quote -- "I think he commits to a peaceful transfer as long as it's a fair election" -- unquote.

But what the president considers fair remains vague. And, in fact, the president's repeated attacks on states' legal vote-by-mail laws, both rhetorically and in state courts, suggest that the ultimate factor for President Trump as to whether or not an election is fair is whether or not he wins.

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The president has said directly any election he does not win is rigged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Keep in mind the president is lagging behind in several polls both in battleground states and nationally.

Now, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, has said that he has seen no evidence of widespread voter fraud. That prompted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to attack Wray on TV this morning.

What we're witnessing is playing out in front of all of our eyes. The president is setting the stage to argue that, if he loses, it's because of fraud, that if experts say there's no evidence of widespread fraud, that they're lying, as his campaign is simultaneously sharing misleading and downright false, edited videos of Joe Biden, spreading the harshest of false smears about Biden, and as the president rejects the findings of intelligence agencies that Russia is once again interfering in this election to help him.

It seems obvious that the president has doubts that he can win this election fair and square, running a clean campaign, based upon his record. So he is instead pursuing an alternate strategy, even as he engages in more traditional campaign activities, as he's doing today, CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With 39 days until the election, President Trump is on his second of three campaign stops today in three different states.

As Trump courts key voters, his chief of staff is directly contradicting the FBI director after he testified that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States.

MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: With all due respect to Director Wray, he has a hard time finding e-mails in his own FBI, let alone of figuring out whether there's any kind of voter fraud. Perhaps he needs to get involved on the ground, and he would change his testimony on Capitol Hill.

COLLINS: Chief of Staff Mark Meadows undermining the testimony of Chris Wray, who appeared to choose his words carefully when asked if voting by mail is secure.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We have not seen historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise.

COLLINS: Today, Meadows also directly tied Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose in November to an unusual announcement from the Justice Department.

MEADOWS: I think he commits to a peaceful transfer as long as it's -- it's a fair election. We now know that we have a Department of Justice investigation into ballots that were discarded from veterans.

COLLINS: The Justice Department announced Thursday it was investigating nine discarded ballots in Pennsylvania, a state where six million people voted in 2016.

The DOJ was later forced to clarify it was seven ballots for Trump, not nine, as they initially claimed. President Trump beginning his day in Florida, where he's courting Hispanic voters, while polls show his support with the group is much stronger than it was four years ago.

TRUMP: But I'm thrilled to be back at Doral with so many patriotic Americans who are part of our extraordinary national movement. And that's Latinos for Trump.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

COLLINS: Trump's standing with black voters is nowhere near as strong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald J. Trump.

COLLINS: In Atlanta this afternoon, he sought to change that, as polls show a close race in the state.

TRUMP: For decades, Democrat politicians like Joe Biden have taken black voters for granted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, we are told that the attorney general, Bill Barr, did brief President Trump on those nine discarded ballots in Pennsylvania.

We're told that was because it had been circulating, and so before it was officially announced, Barr did tell the president about it. That's how you saw the president talking about it before you saw that official release from their office about it.

But what we are told by Justice Department officials is they do not think this is any intentional purpose of voter fraud. They actually just think it was improperly trained staff and a poorly designed process that led to this.

TAPPER: Improperly trained staff?

The Trump campaign yesterday said the Democrats are trying to steal the election. So that was just completely not true?

COLLINS: Well, that obviously fits the Trump campaign's narrative that there is widespread voter fraud, instead of pointing to the fact that it was only these nine ballots. They're military ballots, so they're obviously handled in a different way.

And so that is what so far the Justice Department has learned. That -- they're still investigating it, of course. And that's why it was so unusual, Jake, that they released that statement yesterday, because, typically, they don't put something like that out while they're still conducting an investigation.

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But, of course, the White House is using it to imply that there will be more to come, though there's no indication of that yet, Jake.

TAPPER: Right. Exactly. The Trump campaign is lying, to put -- not to put too fine a point on it.

Kaitlan Collins, thank you so much.

Interest in voting before Election Day is skyrocketing, according to a new CNN survey. More than half-a-million ballots have already been cast 39 days out from Election Day.

Let's bring in CNN's Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, break down these numbers for us.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, these -- this is a clear sign of what's going to be a record-shattering turnout in this election.

And let's get right to those numbers. So far, to date, 28 million pre- election ballots have been requested. That is on top of another 43 million that will automatically be mailed out. And just for some context here, this amount already exceeds the total amount of ballots cast in 2016 before that election.

Now, of course, the big question is, who exactly is voting? So let's pull up our party breakdown here. And this is in these key battleground states. And you can see that Democrats are outpacing Republicans by 1.3 million more ballots requested.

But there is a huge caveat here, Jake. And that is that this is not a surprise. All of the research, all of the data, the information that we have is that Republicans, and particularly Trump supporters, they prefer to vote in-person on Election Day.

So they could easily make this number back up. Now, just to give a little bit of visual context here as to just how extraordinary these numbers are, I'm going to pull up the state of North Carolina.

And here you can see a side-by-side between 2016 this time and now. The state just surpassed one million absentee ballot requests. At this point in 2016, they were at 85,000.

I mean, this is a stark difference here. And just for you, I will give you a little bit of data from your home Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The pre-election ballots that have been requested eight times more than the number of pre-election votes cast in 2016, Jake.

TAPPER: Interesting.

All right, Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for that.

Let's focus a little bit on North Carolina. It's a key battleground state, very competitive there.

I want to bring in the state's Board of Elections executive director, Karen Brinson Bell.

Ms. Bell, thank you so much for joining us.

So, President Trump is calling mail-in ballots a disaster. He's questioning whether or not this election can be honest. A lot is riding on North Carolina, which Obama won in 2008, but has gone Republican in 2012 2016.

What are you seeing in your state when it comes to vote by mail?

KAREN BRINSON BELL, NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS: We're seeing a tremendous interest.

I think the data that was just put up on the screen helps to illustrate that. We have actually had more ballots returned from those-million plus requests that we even had cast in 2016. We think that, traditionally, we would have had a 4 to 5 percent

participation in vote by mail. But, this year, we're expecting 30 to 40 percent of our ballots to be cast absentee by mail in North Carolina.

TAPPER: So you're seeing this huge surge in the number of absentee ballots requested.

In your state, as in most states, there is a vote by mail. You don't need to have an excuse. But you do need to request it. How are you planning to handle this huge influx and the possibility that maybe you will not know who won on election night North Carolina?

BRINSON BELL: Our county board of elections have been working tirelessly to be prepared for this.

North Carolina was the first in the nation to send out absentee by- mail ballots. We do that 60 days in advance, where most states do 45 days in advance of the election. So that's why we're in some ways ahead of the game and are seeing so many requests already, but also so many returned ballots.

We're also uniquely positioned. Our -- we have had provisions in our law for some time now that allows us to process absentee ballots at dedicated board meetings, where our bipartisan board members review and approve the returned ballots, their envelopes, to make sure that they are complete.

And then we can actually process those ballots in advance of Election Day...

TAPPER: So, there is some controversy...

BRINSON BELL: ... and then tabulate on Election -- we tabulate on Election Day.

TAPPER: Got it.

So, there is some controversy in your state. The two Republicans on your state Board of Elections suddenly resigned, they say in protest. This is after the board pushed a settlement that would allow voters to fix rejected ballots and extend the date to accept ballots.

The North Carolina Senate majority leader, Phil Berger, is accusing your board of making fraud easier. What's your response?

BRINSON BELL: The -- we put out a statement.

The board members are briefed before every board meeting by our agency counsel, who are civil servants, and our litigators, who are also civil servants. They were all very well-prepared. And it was a unanimous vote by the five-member board at that point in time.

It's unfortunate that these two board members have resigned. They have given tremendous service to North Carolina and many years of experience prior to being on the state board as county board members. [16:15:01]

So, it's unfortunate that they won't be serving with us. They've done a tremendous amount of work for North Carolinians.

In terms of how this affects voter fraud, what we did and what the board did by agreeing to these settlements, we hade a number of court cases that were going to run right up to the election and possibly change the rules of the game. But by coming to a settlement agreement unanimously and working with the plaintiffs, we now have clarity for the voters and clarity for our county elections to administer this, you know, pivotal election.

So, really, it just gave clarity to laws that we already have in place.

TAPPER: All right. Karen Brinson Bell, thank you so much. Good luck during this busy election season. North Carolina, a very pivotal state -- really appreciate your time.

BELL: Thank you. Appreciate your time.

TAPPER: As coronavirus cases start dropping, Florida's governor is lifting all COVID restrictions and changing something else, which could cause those numbers to go back up, health experts warned. That's next.

Plus, as the White House attacks its own FBI director, the last FBI director, James Comey, who was fired by President Trump -- well, he'll join us.

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TAPPER: In today's health lead, the United States just hit a major unwanted milestone, 7 million coronavirus cases.

And as CNN's Nick Watt reports, states in the West and the Midwest are the new coronavirus hot spots in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Something looks off here.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seven million COVID cases now confirmed in the United States. More than double Europe's case count and many more people live there.

DR. LEANA WEN, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Unlike Europe, unlike Asian countries, we are starting off this fall/winter with a very high level of infection.

WATT: And here's where we are. New York state is now creating its own task force to review any vaccine approved by the feds.

Frankly, I'm not going to trust the federal government's opinion, said Governor Andrew Cuomo, despite this pledge.

DR. STEPHEN HAHN, FDA COMMISSIONER: Our experts who know about vaccines will be make determinations, and it will be only based upon the science and the data, not politics. That's my pledge.

WATT: One influential model now predicts 3,000 Americans will be dying every day by the end of the year, more than triple our current toll.

If 95 percent of Americans would wear masks, those researchers say we'd save nearly 100,000 lives by January 1st. But apparently only 48 percent of us are willing to mask up.

Meanwhile, the mask-averse governor of Missouri and the state's first lady have both now tested positive for COVID-19, so have the pro-mask first lady and governor of Virginia.

As I've been reminding Virginians throughout this crisis, wrote Governor Ralph Northam, COVID-19 is very real and very contagious.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Given the fact that we have never gotten down to a good base line, we are still in the first wave.

WATT: All that red, those are states where average case counts are right now rising. In Colorado, around a thousand confirmed cases now at CU-Boulder.

MILES LEVIN, STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO-BOULDER: I'm honestly frustrated and disappointed that these officials couldn't have seen the writing on the wall.

WATT: Still, out west, a limited Pac-12 football season will now kick off early November. The league had said there would be no play until next year.

Different folks, different strokes. New York and Florida both holding steady for now. Today, Florida moves into phase three opening.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): What that'll mean for the restaurants is that there will not be limitations from the state of Florida.

WATT: Meanwhile, New York City just made the outdoor dining option permanent and year-round.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, the governor of Florida wants to get business totally back open, totally understandable. But the state is still seeing well more than 2,000 new COVID cases every single day. The governor has also suspended all fines for non-mask wearing and, Jake, says he expects to host a full Super Bowl in February.

TAPPER: OK, Nick Watt, thank you so much.

Let's bring in CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, so the United States, no other country has more coronavirus

cases than us. The U.S. went from 6 million to 7 million cases in less than a month.

What do you read into this?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the plateau that we've been talking about for some time. If you do the math, you'll find that we went from 5 to 6 million cases roughly around the same time. We're just sort of stuck in this plateau 30,000 to 40,000 new infections per day.

The concern is with that much virus circulating, going into the fall, people are going to be inside more, people are going to schools, you know, more mobile. The numbers could start to really take off again.

You see how we compare to the rest of the world. I don't know if we have the graphic to show the closest model 1918 what happened then. But sort of going into that fall season, and this is 102 years ago, the population of the country was a third of what it is now. But it was right around this time, Jake, that you saw significant increase in cases. We don't want to see that obviously. But the thing is, Jake, as you well know, we've talked about you can't look at these things sort of linearly. Once you start to get a certain amount of a significant viral transmission, then the numbers start to really shoot up. So, we got to make sure that these numbers don't continue to go up. Because if not they'll go into exponential growth.

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TAPPER: And, Sanjay, in just the last week, coronavirus cases began trending up in 23 states, most in the West and in the Midwest.

You know, we have seen these kinds of spikes before. Are you noticing any common theme?

GUPTA: Yeah. I mean, you know, the first time we really saw a significant spike related to an event was Memorial Day weekend. We saw it again after July 4th. So these holiday weekends, there's clearly a lot of people who are increasingly moving around at that point, clustering together. And now, Labor Day weekend.

So, you know, a few weeks, it's not an exact science, but a few weeks after these type of weekends, you know, you do see an increase in the number of infections. The concerning thing now, again, Jake, is that the climate is changing as well. People aren't outside as much, and, again, schools, even if younger people are less likely to get sick, which they are far less likely to get sick for sure, but they can still potentially transmit the virus.

So, we're seeing those ingredients sort of repeat a pattern over and over again.

TAPPER: And, Sanjay, today, Florida moved into phase three of that stage 3 opening. Governor DeSantis saying that regardless of local restrictions restaurants can open at full capacity. Florida's case count has been holding steady, but the state average is still about 100 coronavirus related deaths every day and 2,000 infections every day.

What do you make of the decision to reopen?

GUPTA: Well, you know, I mean, this is -- to a public health official, this is sort of an obvious thing, the idea of re-opening when we're nowhere near containment in a particular place.

And let me put a little bit of context on that. What does it mean to actually have this virus contained versus mitigating? Somewhere between 1 and a million to 1 in a thousand cases. So, in the country as a whole, that would be below 3,500 cases or 35,000.

Florida has a population of about 21 million, I believe. So you would want to see fewer than 200 cases. There are 2,000. So, there is just way too much viral transmission.

I get the idea of wanting to reopen, and obviously Governor DeSantis has gone through this before. You saw what happened when they had that big spike, that's when they reopened. That's obviously a concern.

But inside restaurants with full capacity? That's the worst possible sort of scenario. People can't mask, they're eating. You get a lot of viral transmission. There is no mask mandate. There's no fine. Masks are recommended, but there's no fine if you don't wear one.

I mean, these are all the wrong sort of decisions as far as actually trying to bring this pandemic under control. It's basically like saying, hey, this is the best we can do, maybe it'll get worse. We're willing to take our chances.

TAPPER: New York City is going to now allow outdoor dining permanently. Restaurants are going to be able to use sidewalks and heat lamps long term. What do you think of that decision? Will that make a difference?

GUPTA: Yeah. Jake, this comes up a lot. And you and I have talked about outdoor versus indoor, just that simple denominator. You know, how big of a difference does it make?

It does make a big difference. You know, outdoors because of the way that this virus can maybe even aerosolize. If you have a huge outdoor space, it's far less likely to become concentrated. How much less likely?

Well, I've looked at a bunch of different studies and they say it's probably 18 times safer, really, in terms of viral transmission to be outside versus inside. Obviously, it depends what kind of indoor setting, but a closely clustered indoor setting where the ventilation is not as good is the worst and outdoor is a lot better.

These situations still depend. How close are people going to be together? You know, what sort of proximity they're going to have to staff. Are people going to be wearing masks? I think in New York they will be. It's still concerning in the middle of a pandemic to bring people

together in any significant numbers. But outdoors is way better than indoors.

TAPPER: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

It's one of the most uncomfortable hand shakes between then FBI Director James Comey and President Trump. Since then reality has been stranger than fiction. Now James Comey is reliving it all in a new television series with Jeff Daniels playing him. Both men will join me, next.

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