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NFL Postpones Titans Vs. Steelers Game After COVID Outbreak; NYC Positivity Rate Over 3 Percent for First Time in Months; 7 Former FDA Chiefs Say Trump Undermined FDA Credibility; At Least 65 Million People Watched Tuesday's Debate; Voters Speak Out After Chaotic, Off the Rails Debate. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 30, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: We just learned today COVID is now forcing the NFL to postpone Sunday night football. The match-up between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans is off. After at least four players and five staff members on the Titans tested positive for the coronavirus. This is the first time COVID has disrupted the NFL season since it started back up.

CNN's Erica Hill, she has much more on the pandemic and these new spikes happening across the country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOV. TONY EVERS (D) WISCONSIN: We have got to put the brakes on this pandemic.

ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Wisconsin, the virus continues to set records.

DR. PAUL CASEY, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, BELLIN HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT: Over the last three weeks we've had remarkable surge in COVID patients.

HILL: The White House Task Force recommending state increase social distancing to the maximal degree possible and boost testing at universities.

DR. RYAN WESTERGAARD. WISCONSIN BUREAU OF COMMUNICABLE DISEASE: It is safe to assume that the virus is everywhere. So, everyone needs to be -- to change their behavior.

HILL: It's one of 26 states reporting an increase in new cases over the past week. Nearly the entire northern half of the country.

DR. ROCHELLE WOLENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: And those trends indicate increased activity, increased transmission of the disease and places where we really need to test and trace and lockdown and make sure that we get it in check.

HILL: New York City focusing on several neighborhoods where cases are surging.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D) NEW YORK CITY: The numbers can change rapidly in the right direction so we're going to keep working daily, hourly to make that change.

HILL: Hundreds of police officers and city employees dispatched to those areas offering free masks and reminders about how to stop the spread. Meantime, restaurants can now open for indoor dining at 25 percent.

ANDREW SCHULMAN, CO-OWNER, TANNER SMITH'S: We need more to survive. But this is a step in the right direction.

HILL: New numbers from the CDC show infections in 18 to 22-year-olds increased 55 percent in August and early September as many return to campus.

DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERT: Colleges have been frankly a real challenge point for transmission.

HILL: An outbreak among Notre Dame's football team spread like wildfire after a pregame team meal according to the head coach Brian Kelly. At least 39 players are now in isolation or quarantine.

Ohio's largest public-school district plans to start in-person learning October 19th. Miami-Dade staggered re-entry begins October 5th.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You should always try to get the children back to school. The risk of going back is really dependent on where you are.

HILL: Researchers say Phase 1 data from Moderna's vaccine shows an immune response in older adults as seven former FDA commissioners warn the Trump administration is undermining the agency's credibility and public confidence.

Political intrusion, they write, only prolongs the pandemic and erodes our public health institutions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: Kate, we've talked so much over the last couple of months and certainly in the wake of these big holidays about a potential surge in cases. And as we look at the positivity rate across the river in New Jersey, it just hit 3 percent, the governor says that's its been highest since mid-July. Despite that being a low number, that's cause for concern.

And in Illinois we know that one northwest region, the governor just said, they're going to have to go back to some mitigation efforts because the positivity rate there has hit 8 percent.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Erica, thank you so much for perfectly laying it out what it looks like right now. I really appreciate it.

For more on this, joining me right now is Dr. Tom Inglesby. He's the Director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health. It is good to see you again doctor.

[15:35:03]

Kind of where Erica left off in her piece where she was talking about these FDA Commissioners. They lay out in really plain language in their opinion piece the long and growing list of incidences where the President and the White House have done or threatened to inject politics into the FDA. And they write that the -- that they still trust the scientists and their work at the agency but also say that perception matters when it comes to public trust. Do you think it can be repaired at this point? Is there a fix for this?

DR. TOM INGLESBY, DIRECTOR, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH AND SAFETY: I do think there is a chance to repair it. I think it will depend on what the FDA does now. How they respond to their external committee that they're gathering at the end of October.

I do have confidence in the career scientists at the FDA who do this work, day in and day out, independent of the administration. And I have confidence in the external scientific leaders who get called in from the outside to review the vaccine.

But if we don't fix the process now, there's going to be less and less confidence in this vaccine and all of this great work that's been going on to develop a safe and effective vaccine will really be undermined and at risk.

BOLDUAN: Not helping in this, quite honestly, the President spent time on the debate stage last night saying that his top adviser on vaccines and the head of the CDC are wrong in his view when it comes to the vaccine timeline.

They are saying that a vaccine will likely be available to the general public by next summer. He's still pushing that it could be out by November 1st. What is he missing here, doctor, and what impact does this very clear contradiction that the President continues to push due to what we are talking about, public confidence?

INGLESBY: Well, you know, one of the things that the FDA Commissioners wrote about in their commentary today was that when Teddy Roosevelt established the FDA, he put scientists in charge of oversight of drugs and safety, of drugs and medicine, and because political leaders don't have any background in medicine or public health.

So, for the White House to be deriving their own timeline that's different from FDA or CDC or NIH, it just doesn't make any sense and it's just going to undermine confidence even further.

So, I think we need to let the process play out. The trials are underway. There are large, good trials being done. We need to find out what those trials show, whether they show the vaccine is safe and efficacious. And then from that point forward we can start the process of getting people vaccinated. But we can't do it before they're done.

BOLDUAN: That's exactly right. You cannot rush this. Even though you can cut through some red tape, you cannot rush the process of these trials.

Looking across the country, doctor, you've got ten states who are showing a rise in positivity rate, you can see the red and the orange on the map and how it's looking now. They really are sounding the alarm in Wisconsin at the moment. We heard that in Erica's piece. What is the level of crisis there, do you think, and what's your take on what's kind of a happening in the Midwest at the moment?

INGLESBY: Yes, unfortunately we are seeing some states hit their all- time high in terms of daily numbers of cases, including, of course, Wisconsin, which really is having the most serious crisis in their health care system.

We're seeing some hospitals and some communities reach close to their limits in terms of people who they can care for in intensive care units. And even some discussion that they may have to use one of the field hospitals that was built earlier in the springtime in the event that patients exceed the numbers that are possible in their intensive care units.

And I think it's, you know, it is a growing crisis and needs to be dealt with very, very seriously. People need to be committed to wearing masks, physically distancing, avoiding large gatherings. The same things that people are doing around the world, that are doing in places that are very successful in controlling this virus, those are more important than ever.

And if those things don't work, then they're going to have to really take additional measures, additional kinds of closures to try and bring things under control. So, it's important for the everybody there and for other states that are experiencing this in the Midwest to really buckle down and take these things extremely seriously.

BOLDUAN: OK, doctor, thank you very much.

INGLESBY: Thanks so much.

BOLDUAN: Of course. Still ahead for us, the Commission on Presidential Debates, this is a group that is nonpartisan independent group that's been overseeing general election debates since the 1980s, for decades. After last night, they say they need to make changes. What could that mean for the next debate? That's coming up.

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[15:50:00]

BOLDUAN: Breaking news. Just in, the numbers are in. We're just now learning how many people tuned in and stayed tuned in for last night's debate. This as the Presidential Debate Commission announced this afternoon that debate rules will be changing going forward after that 90-minute mess last night.

The commission writing this --

Last night's debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues.

That might be an understatement at this point. Let me bring in right now CNN chief media correspondent, host of "Reliable Sources," Brian Stelter. Brian, it's great to see you.

Let's start with the numbers though on how many people watched last night's debate. So, what are you hearing?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, these are preliminary numbers from Nielson, only counting people who watched on TV at home.

About 65 million people watched on TV at home last night. That means this debate was the biggest event on television in America since the Super Bowl in February. That's the only bigger show in America. This debate was huge by any standard.

However, the numbers are down from 2016. Back when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met on stage for the first time that was the highest rated debate in American history. 75 - 85 million viewers. So as the totals come in later today, we will get a fuller sense of how many people watched exactly.

[15:55:00]

But we know at least 65 million people watched last night's debate on TV, an additional number watched on streaming or listened on the radio. So, if you think your preferred candidate did a good job, then that's good news. It means people were paying attention.

Here is what I want to know, Kate, and what we don't have yet from the Nielson company, I want to know if people kept watching the entire time or if some turned it off in disgust. I think there was probably some people that turned it off. However, CNN.com's traffic for our streaming coverage actually peaked toward the end so that tells me some people heard all of the fuss on social media and decided to turn it on, too.

BOLDUAN: It is interesting. Because as we know on TV, Brian, when you're talking over each other, no one can hear what you are saying, other than just looking at a mess play out.

So, we'll see how many people stay tuned in, I'm very curious as to that but that's a big pretty big number, 65 million that you're talking about.

STELTER: Yes.

BOLDUAN: All right, so, you also --

STELTER: It's huge, yes.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about the Debate Commission. And I was really struck by this announcement that they made that -- I take it as they say there is going to be changes. What do you think that they're considering?

STELTER: Yes.

BOLDUAN: You had the co-chairman on your show.

STELTER: Yes, and this is a commission that, you know, has been around for decades. These people have been in charge for decades. They are traditionalists. They are old-fashioned and I say that in a good sense, you know. This is an American tradition that hasn't changed in decades.

But, of course, one thing has changed and that's the conduct of the sitting president. So, we know the commission is thinking about making about making changes. They are not saying what they're going to do. They are not revealing that, but I think what it's obvious is, they're looking at the microphones. They're looking at whether they can cut off some of these candidates, especially Trump, of course, if he interrupts again and again and again.

Of course, if we can't hear him interrupting, Biden is still going to be able to hear him, so I'm not sure that's going to be a full solution. But the commission is figuring out what to do differently, right now they're being very tight lipped about it but this just goes to show how disruptive Trump is to the process, that this commission, which prides itself on just being consistent and straight forward and doing the same thing every four years, not this year. Something's going to change between now and mid-October.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and the campaigns greed to it and then the candidates have to stick to it as we saw the latter did not happen last night that's for sure. That debate broke debates or at least traditional debates. That seems very clear. It's good to see you, Brian, thank you so much.

STELTER: Thanks, you too.

BOLDUAN: All right, so the next debate is going to be different, so they say. Which is likely welcome news to many voters who were understandably overwhelmed by the mess last night.

Did voters actually learn anything? Did it change any minds? Turn anyone away or draw anyone into either candidate?

CNN's Jeff Zeleny, he's talking to voters in a key part of Michigan, Macomb County, he's joining me now, it's good to see you, Jeff, what are you hearing from voters there? And also, please remind people why Macomb County is always so interesting.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Kate, we certainly know that some of those millions of viewers that Brian was talking about there certainly were here in battleground Michigan. Virtually every voter we talked to this morning when they were casting early votes, we should point out election season's already underway here.

Every voter we talked to for a period of a couple of hours, this is a few dozen voters, several dozen voters, had watched the debate. They tuned into at least the beginning part of the debate.

But Macomb County is a place that we will be watching on election day and this is why.

President Trump carried this county right north of Detroit by some 12 percentage points in 2016. It was one of the biggest flip counties. That means that Barack Obama carried this county by about four percentage points so it flipped by about 30,000 votes. So Democrats now are trying to flip this county back again. Of course, the Trump campaign trying to hold onto it.

We found a very divided set of opinions this morning. But one voter we talked to Mary Ann Zito rushed to turn in her early ballot because of that debate last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY ANN ZITO, VOTER: I thought it was very embarrassing for two adult men to act like that. They should have been able to cut off President Trump's mic.

ROSE, VOTER: I'm not in love with Trump, that's for sure. And some of the things that he says come off as crass and crude. But I don't believe all of the negative press about him either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So we heard that sentiment from Trump supporters as well like Rose there who told us, look, she does not like everything President Trump says but she says she indeed voted for him in part because of the debate and because she likes his record.

So, Kate, as this debate process moves on, we should point out by the time of the second debate, October 15th, millions and millions more of Americans will have already voted.

BOLDUAN: That's exactly right. Just as you saw today. Good to see you, Jeff. Thanks for being there.

Coming up next for us, a man in Los Angeles facing attempted murder charges for an ambush shooting of two sheriff's deputies. Be right back.

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BOLDUAN: A two weeklong manhunt is now over today. A Los Angeles man now facing attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting two sheriff's deputies as they simply sat in their patrol car. The ambush earlier this month that left both officers hospitalized from multiple gunshot wound that they suffered.

Let's get over to Stephanie Elam. She's got the details on this. Stephanie, what do we know about the suspect being charged?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Kate, so what I can tell you, is beginning on September 1st, there was a carjacking in Compton of a black Mercedes-Benz. The owner of that car was shot.

Well, fast forward then to the 12th of September. That is when those two deputies were shot in that ambush. Luckily, both have survived and are supposed to recover.

And then three days later on the 15th, that is when this suspect was captured. And the thing is during that pursuit, we learned today that a gun was tossed, a pistol was tossed from the vehicle that now forensics shows is connected to that shooting.

Here is what Captain Wegener from the L.A.S.D. says the reason why they didn't connect these two dots earlier and just let us know about this today.

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CAPT. KENT WEGENER, LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: When I said that the gun matched both ballistically and forensically, that was days later, days after his arrest. So, we didn't have that. And it would've been, you know, it would've been irresponsible for us to put his name in the papers as being the guy we're looking at because that's irrefutable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: Now it's also worth knowing that they said that the gun used was a ghost gun and that also looking at surveillance video, they were able to discern that that black Mercedes-Benz that had been carjacked was seen around the same area.

And that is what they were doing but they said they needed this time to do all of their police work and to figure out that this was in fact their suspect. His name is Deonte Lee Murray.

[15:55:00]

He's a 36-year-old man. And we know that he has plead not guilty today -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: And real quick, Stephanie, what could he face if he's convicted?

ELAM He's looking at life in jail if he is convicted. And right now, he's facing bail of more than $6 million.

BOLDUAN: Stephanie, thank you so much, sincerely appreciate it. More updates to come there. But still ahead for us, the President of the United States refusing to condemn white supremacists. A closer look at some of the hate groups who take Trump's words as a show of support.

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