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New Day

CDC Forecast of Deaths; Ballot Requests Setting Record; Lawsuits over Mail-In Voting; Trump and Supporters Post Fake Videos; James wants Justice for Taylor. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired September 25, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, CONTRIBUTING TO NIH MODERNA VACCINE TRIAL: New cases (INAUDIBLE) our country. So the deaths may be more than 1,000 coming up.

So it's really -- it's up to us to change this. And as the model from (INAUDIBLE) says, if we wear a mask, if we all wear a mask, we can actually bring the number of new infections and the number of transmissions down significantly.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are seeing a rise in new cases. And, again, just to make clear, 44,000 new cases overnight. Dr. Anthony Fauci said we should be at 10,000 case per day now. So we're four times, at least, worse off than where he thinks we should be right now.

We've been talking about the U.S. Senate passing resolution affirming our commitment to free and fair elections and a peaceful transition of power. There's something similar that seems to be going on in the public health -- the official public health community, where the FDA commissioner, Stephen Hahn, had to go out of his way to affirm that science will dictate policy regarding the coronavirus vaccines.

Listen to what he says here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, he said this because the president said he might overrule new FDA guidelines, which could extend the vaccine approval process.

So my question to you is, what's going to happen here, Dr. Del Rio? Do you feel that the FDA will be pressured?

DEL RIO: Well, I think the FDA could be pressured, just like CDC has been. But I think we, as citizens, and myself as an investigator, we have to trust the process. And we need to be sure that, you know, the process of approving a vaccine, the clinical trials process, the way a data safety monitor board is established for every study, the way the data is looked at, the way that it goes to the FDA, the expertise of the FDA career scientists, when they look at the data, if we let the process take place the way it should, there shouldn't be a problem.

The president doesn't have the ability to do that. It is really the career scientists at the FDA that know what they're looking at and will have to make the determination. So we have to trust the process.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

Dr. Carlos Del Rio, thank you very much for helping us give us where we are in the country right now. Great to see you.

DEL RIO: Good to be with you.

CAMEROTA: All right, requests for mail-in ballots already breaking records. The brand-new numbers for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:16]

BERMAN: This morning we're seeing all kinds of evidence that interest in early voting is skyrocketing across the country. A CNN survey of election offices in 42 states and Washington, D.C., finds that more than 28 million ballots have already been requested. Another 43 million are being mailed automatically to voters. That tops the more than 50 million pre-election ballots that were cast past in 2016.

CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us now, more with the numbers, what's actually happening here, Kristen, which I think is important.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, that's right.

So this is a sign of what is expected to be record-shattering voter turnout in this election. You know, of those 42 states that we surveyed, 15 of them reported that they have more requests for absentee ballots now than the entire amount of pre-election votes that were cast back in 2016.

So, looking at it on a state-by-state level, for example, North Carolina, the number of absentee ballots there has already surpassed 1 million this week. At this point in 2016, there were 85,000 requests, 85,000 versus 1 million. Pennsylvania, the number of ballots requested there is eight times the amount of people who actually cast a ballot ahead of the election in 2016.

Now, of course, I'm mentioning key swing states and I want to break down the party breakdown here for you in those key swing states because that's very important. You have 1.3 million more ballots that have been requested by Democrats than Republicans. While this is a big number, there is a big caveat here. It is not that surprising. All of the research that we have, all the data shows that President Trump's supporters, Republicans, are more likely to vote in-person on Election Day. So that number could easily be made up.

Now, in terms of ballots that have actually been cast, we have data from about 12 states here and it's about 500,000 ballots that have actually been cast. There is some important things to keep in mind when we talk about these huge numbers. Not all of those mail-in ballots are actually going to be cast. They are not going to be returned. And, in fact, I spoke to people in Virginia who told me that they had requested a mail-in ballot, decided they wanted to cast their ballot in person, so we have to account for some of that.

The other thing here is that the number of people requesting ballots does not in any way indicate how the election outcome will look. But this is very encouraging in terms of seeing people registering to vote, getting out there, and it shows just how important this election is to so many Americans, John.

CAMEROTA: I'll take it, Kristen. You're so right, there is a high level of engagement and that is great for any side. So, thank you very much for giving us a snapshot of where we are right now.

Joining us now is CNN analyst Jessica Huseman. She's a reporter at ProPublica.

Jessica, we've really been looking forward to talking to you. Also, to kind of mentally prepare viewers and voters that this is not going to be a neat and tidy election day because of coronavirus, because of all of that voter engagement that Kristen was just telling us, it's going to look different. And it already is.

For -- case in point, there's already legal battles happening in states around the country because of things like this, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Where will voters be able to drop off their ballots? That's one legal battle. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, when do voters have to mail in their ballots by? Michigan, will voters have the ability to fix any problems with their mail-in ballots? North Carolina, Republicans pledging to try to overturn a new agreement that extends the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots by six days.

So give us your take on what we're already seeing.

[06:40:00]

And are these measures designed to restrict voting access or just to clarify it?

JESSICA HUSEMAN, CNN ANALYST: You know, I think that it's a mixed bag across the country. There are some states that are certainly not that thrilled that vote by mail is increasing. There are other states that are doing it enthusiastically. And still in those states it's a huge movement to switch from traditional methods of voting to vote-by-mail. And so a lot of these lawsuits are just about sorting out the details that haven't been worked out because we're just moving so quickly towards November and this pandemic in a very different voting environment. So, you know, I think that depending on the states that you're in, both of the things that you just referenced might be true. CAMEROTA: And let's talk -- let's just zero in on one thing that is

confusing people in Pennsylvania, and that are these rather Victorian terms of naked ballots and secrecy envelopes. And this is, I mean I think you're about to tell us, an antiquated notion, but let's just listen to the Pennsylvania attorney general attempt to explain it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH SHAPIRO (D) PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: You fold it up and you stick it in the secrecy envelope. That's the second ballot -- or the second envelope. And the final envelope is the envelope you use to mail it back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, what's happening there?

HUSEMAN: Let me just say that if 2020 brings me nothing but the phrase "naked ballots," I will be just -- just fine with that. I -- you know, it's a really confusing and antiquated system. These secrecy ballots were really useful when, you know, we were counting votes by hand and there was a concern that the person counting your ballot might see the way that you voted.

But that's really not how ballots are counted anymore. They are sorted by machines. They are counted by machines. And by the time human eyes see the ballots, they have been removed from any envelope that would contain the voter's identity. So for something like an audit, their secret ballot would still be protected.

And so what's really interesting about Pennsylvania is that while most states that have secrecy envelopes still require you to sign the back of that inner envelope, Pennsylvania requires you to sign the back of the outer envelope that's looked at by the clerks. So there's really no purpose for the inner envelope at all.

And so experts are telling me that they're really discouraged by the idea that such a useless by-product of the past is going to be disenfranchising voters in Pennsylvania.

CAMEROTA: Now let's talk about another thing in Pennsylvania, and that's these nine discarded ballots. It sounds like they were military ballots that people might have thought were mail-in ballots. When they figured out they were military ballots, they threw them out. There were nine. That hardly suggests any sort of widespread problem whatsoever.

However, the Department of Justice felt compelled to get involved and issue a press release about this. So what does that tell us?

HUSEMAN: You know, it's really stunning to me that the DOJ issued a press release. It's obviously not policy for the DOJ to comment on investigations that are still pending. And so that was -- that was a striking thing for them to do.

And given that they identified how these ballots were cast, which is very much not in line with America's history of maintaining secrecy and ballots and is, in fact, the exact reason why Pennsylvania's secret ballot envelopes, inner envelopes are being litigated right now, you know, it was just a really stunning announcement that kind of smacked of partisanship, the exact kind of partisanship out of the DOJ that, you know, the media and Democrats have really been concerned about this entire season.

And so what we don't know is what discarded even means. So it said that the ballots were discarded. We're really not clear as to what that meant or how the ballots ended up where they did or why. It's clear from Pennsylvania officials that these were mistaken for something they weren't. It was a very small number of ballots.

And then, also, this county went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016, so that most of the ballots, you know, made -- they're aware of who was -- whose name was on seven of the nine ballots and that seven of those nine ballots were cast for Donald Trump is not that surprising. So there's really nothing about this that would suggest a larger problem. It is certainly true that these nine ballots should be investigated and what happened to them should be figured out because every vote does count and these nine ballots will matter, but it does not suggest an overwhelming problem as if -- which Trump's campaign, yesterday, tried to play it off as. And I just don't think that there's any evidence of that.

CAMEROTA: That's really helpful because I think that that's the upshot of all this. Yes, there are these hiccups. People are desperately trying to iron them out over, you know, the next 40 days. But on a large scale, we are being assured by election officials everywhere that they are going to get this right.

So, Jessica, thank you very much for all of your investigating and reporting and sharing it with us.

[06:45:01]

HUSEMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: OK, so, ahead, CNN takes you to a Trump rally where we ask the president's supporters to show us their FaceBook feeds. The content they're seeing and how it's influencing their vote. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, this morning, a remarkable CNN investigation. What are the results of the deliberate misinformation campaigns being staged by President Trump and his campaign? What are Trump supporters and voters actually hearing? Well, really for the first time, now we know.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan spent time at a Trump event and heard some just amazing things.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: So we've come to a Trump rally in Bemidji, Minnesota, today to ask Trump supporters what they see when they open their FaceBook feeds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one has been more wrong more often than Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The November 3rd election result may never be accurately determined.

[06:50:00]

O'SULLIVAN: On that post, is there any label or fact check or anything?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, they have a little thing at the bottom that says, voting by mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the U.S.

O'SULLIVAN: Are you a FaceBook user?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I use FaceBook, yes.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes. What sort of pages do you follow on there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anybody that agrees with me.

O'SULLIVAN: Only people that agree with you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.

O'SULLIVAN: You don't want to hear --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be a Republican, an anti-abortion guy and a pro-gun and pro-beer.

O'SULLIVAN: But do you not think it would be good to follow some pages of people you disagree with, see their opinion, maybe --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, because they call me stupid, ignorant.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Amen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, why would I follow people that throw rocks at me constantly because they don't disagree with me? I've got tens of thousands of people that do.

O'SULLIVAN: So Trump, his campaign, a lot of senior Republicans over the past few weeks have been sharing doctored and manipulated videos on social media. Now, the Trump campaign and Trump supporters will often say, these videos are clearly jokes, they are memes, people know they're memes, people know they're fake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When people say, well, this is fact-checked, it's wrong because it's taken out of context. Like when Joe Biden fell asleep during a live interview on television.

O'SULLIVAN: He claimed that he fell asleep. I think that was an edited one, right? That was --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't think it was -- it looked pretty live to me with no cuts in it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joining us live this morning from New York.

Hey, good morning!

Wake up! Wake up, wake up!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, we've got -- I don't hear anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, this is your wake-up call here!

O'SULLIVAN: Is this the video that you were talking about?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could be, yes.

O'SULLIVAN: Biden falling --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I watch it really quick?

O'SULLIVAN: Sure. It's --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is "The Washington Post."

O'SULLIVAN: So an article there is saying that -- that it -- that it was faked, but it looked real, right? I mean it looked real.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I mean, I definitely wouldn't doubt that it would happen.

O'SULLIVAN: Even if it is fake, does it change your opinion of Biden?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God, no. You've got to sift through it. I missed that one. But it was a good laugh. It was a really good laugh. And, like I said, I wouldn't doubt it.

O'SULLIVAN: A lot of people we spoke to today are sharing posts on FaceBook that later get fact checked by FaceBook's third party fact checkers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anything I put on there about our president is generally only on for a few minutes and then all of a sudden they're fact checking me saying this, that, and the other thing, which I know is not true. Their fact checks are -- their fact checker's wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They'll right away go to the conservative site to say, that's wrong, then they pull it. And they're -- they're not going to the liberal sites. And them are the real lies. They're the real liars out there.

O'SULLIVAN (voice over): Also circulating online, more insidious forms of misinformation, including baseless claims about Vice President Joe Biden being a pedophile.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Do you guys seriously think that Joe Biden's a pedophile?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I do. But that's just my opinion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel he is. I feel he's part of the game of the whole thing.

O'SULLIVAN (voice over): That baseless, fabricated claim about Biden is circulating among supporters of QAnon, a conspiracy theory that the FBI says is a potential domestic terrorism threat. Some of these false claims have been amplified by the president himself.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): The FBI is saying QAnon is a dangerous conspiracy theory. Does that make you think for a second, hang on, should I be following this thing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, because it -- their -- QAnon's bringing up the bad things about the FBI. That's why they're saying it. That's why they're afraid of it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Two things. One, I mean, it's effective. These people hear that message. The other thing is, FaceBook, it's on -- I know they take some of it down, but it takes a while

CAMEROTA: Oh, please, don't kid yourself. FaceBook has not stepped up, nor have any of the social media platforms stepped up to combat this level. It's chilling.

BERMAN: Right. That's my point.

CAMEROTA: What we just saw was chilling.

BERMAN: Yes. And it's out there, to be sure.

All right, LeBron James speaking out about the grand jury decision not to indict police officers in the killing of Breonna Taylor. "Bleacher Report" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:58:20]

CAMEROTA: Basketball superstar LeBron James calls for justice in the Breonna Taylor case, no matter how long it takes.

Carolyn Manno has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report."

Hi, Carolyn.

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Alisyn.

After calling black women the most disrespected people on earth in his Twitter feed, LeBron James is now speaking for the first time, continuing to share insight into why this is so deeply personal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEBRON JAMES, LOS ANGELES LAKERS FORWARD: And we want justice, no matter, you know, how long it takes, even though it's been so many -- so many days, so many hours, so many minutes for her family, for her community. I mean I've got a daughter of mine at home and a wife and my mom. I mean so many, you know, predominant black women in my life. To think about if they weren't hear the next day or, you know, think if they were gunned down, it would be something I would never be able to forgive myself or forgive who did it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: It's been an emotionally charged year for the Lakers.

In the meantime, the Pac-12 conference will kick off the football season in six weeks' time. Teams are going to play a seven game season without fans in the stands. Decision makers citing updated state and local health guidance and access for daily testing as reasons for the change. Alisyn, the Pac-12, the last of the power five conferences to go ahead and decide to play football in a pandemic.

CAMEROTA: Carolyn Manno, thank you very much.

And NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated, national voter fraud effort.

KALEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president will accept the results of a free and fair election.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): You are not in North Korea. You are in the United States of America.

[07:00:02]

It is a democracy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our experts who know about vaccines will make this determination.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What if the FDA.