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New York's Positivity Rate over 3 Percent; Debate Reality Check; First Debate Chaos. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired September 30, 2020 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:32:12]
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Nine hundred and fourteen Americans lost their lives to coronavirus in one single day, yesterday, 914 new deaths reported. More than 42,000 new cases reported. Again, 42,000 is a big number. Anthony Fauci thinks we should be at 10,000 right now.
And there is growing concern in New York City as the positivity rate for a single day jumped above 3 percent for the first time in months. It had been below one and then it just skyrocketed to three.
Joining us now, CNN medical analyst Dr. Rochelle Walensky. She is the chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.
And 3 percent is still below some of the thresholds that cause major concern. But Dr. Fauci, one of the things he's pointed out is any big increase is something you have to look at. Anytime you see a big jump. And from 1 percent to 3 percent in one day is that kind of jump. It's cause for concern.
So what do you see here, Dr. Walensky?
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Good morning, John.
I see it exactly as you do.
You know, we not only look at the absolute number, what percent positive you have, how many cases you have per 100,000, but we have to look at these trends. And those trends indicate increased activity, increased transmission of the disease, and places where we really need to test and trace and lock down and make sure that we get it in check.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Do you take any solace that at the moment in New York City it appears to be -- the clusters appear to be in certain neighborhoods. Can they be contained in those neighborhoods, or does that mean -- is that sort of a harbinger of bad news for all of New York?
WALENSKY: You know, early on, we really thought through and have continued to say that, you know, there's containment measure when you have enough -- to -- so little disease that you really can effectively test everyone, trace everyone, and really keep things contained. And then there are mitigation efforts, these social distancing, school closing and what not.
I'm really hopeful that even though these numbers are increased, that we are in the containment process. That there are few enough that we can really swoop in, do the testing that we need, isolate people who are positive, do the contact tracing and quarantine the contacts so that they can really get this under control, especially if they're in small clusters.
BERMAN: A big part of that will be mask wearing. A big part of that will be recognizing where things are a problem and taking the appropriate action, social distancing, mask wearing, quarantining the right people.
So the debate last night, President Trump mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask.
What message does that send?
WALENSKY: We have had three consistent messages since late March/early April, you need to wash your hands, you need to social distance, and you need to wear your mask. There were a few weeks in mid-March, early March, where we didn't have adequate data to say that mask wearing was going to be one of the three pillars of getting us out of this.
[06:35:05]
But we know that now and we've been saying it consistently since late March, early April without falter. And so I think that there are some people who don't believe in masks, but I can tell you, people who -- who are reading the science are the ones who are -- who are yelling that from the rooftops.
CAMEROTA: Did anything else from last night's debate, the candidate's responses to coronavirus, jump out at you?
WALENSKY: I want to be very clear about vaccine because there's -- there's so much talk and so much discussion about the vaccine and what it means to, quote/unquote, have a vaccine.
So there was discussion last night that we will, quote, have a vaccine in a few weeks. And I want to be very clear that having a vaccine, whatever that means, does not itself lead to population herd immunity and getting us out of this pandemic. So the vaccine alone is necessary, but it certainly isn't sufficient, especially since we know that about 50 percent of people have said that they won't take the vaccine and the FDA is likely to approve a vaccine that has 50 percent efficacy. So even this early vaccine, we may only see 25 percent herd immunity that emerges from it.
I also want to be very clear that the first vaccine that might -- we might see data from in a few weeks, maybe a few months, that vaccine is going to be one that requires two doses, is one that requires a cold chain that either minus 70 or minus 20. It is going to be really, really hard to roll out and roll out effectively.
So, in my mind, having a vaccine, that is having the data that we see from these clinical trial, is very, very different from having herd immunity that gets us out of this pandemic. And I would say herd immunity that gets us out of this pandemic is on the order of months, and I hate to say it, maybe years.
BERMAN: Dr. Walensky, as always, we appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you.
WALENSKY: Thank you so much.
BERMAN: All right, the trump administration is in court trying to do away with the Affordable Care Act, which guarantees protections for people with pre-existing conditions. So what was said on the stage last night at the debate? The president's words on this, how do they hold up to reality? That's next.
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[06:41:27]
CAMEROTA: President Trump and Joe Biden made plenty of claims about health care and coronavirus at last night's debate, not all of them true.
CNN's Joe -- John Avlon has our "Reality Check."
BERMAN: That's like the understatement of the century.
CAMEROTA: I know! It really is. I'm shocked. Shocked!
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Shocked that there's gambling at -- at this gin joint.
All right, so let's try to separate the signal from the noise, though, around health care and Covid-19.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS WALLACE, MODERATOR: You have never, in these four years, come up with a plan, a comprehensive plan --
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes, I have.
WALLACE: To replace Obamacare.
TRUMP: Of course I have.
WALLACE: Well, you have not --
TRUMP: I got rid of the individual --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: OK, repealing the individual mandate is not a plan. President Trump has never put forward a comprehensive health care plan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There's 100 million people that have pre-existing conditions. And they'll be taken away, as well.
TRUMP: There aren't 100 million people with pre-existing conditions.
I don't know where you got that number.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: OK, estimates with Americans with pre-existing conditions range from 50 million to 129 million. But what's crystal clear is that many people with pre-existing conditions will be denied insurance if Trump gets his way and the ACA is declared unconstitutional.
Which brings us to Biden's comments on SCOTUS Nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
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BIDEN: She's written before she went on the bench, which is her right, that she thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional.
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BERMAN: All right, that's not quite right. She has definitely criticized the ACA and the Supreme Court decision defending it, but she doesn't seem to have outright called it unconstitutional yet.
But all this, of course, is happening against the backdrop of a global pandemic.
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TRUMP: He didn't think we should close it down, and he was wrong. And, again, 2 million people would be dead now instead of, still, 204,000.
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AVLON: All right, Trump was talking about his travel ban on China. And Biden did, in fact, back it in April, though he criticized Trump for calling it the China virus. And as for that 2 million people number, well, the world just passed the 1 million dead mark and there's no telling where Trump go that one.
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TRUMP: Many of your Democrat governors said, President Trump did a phenomenal job. We worked with the government (ph). Oh, really? Go take a look!
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AVLON: OK, we did and they didn't. But we'll have much more to come in the next hour. But, for now, that's your "Reality Check."
John and Ali. CAMEROTA: I like that tease, John.
AVLON: Ah.
CAMEROTA: I will be sticking around for that.
BERMAN: You don't have a choice!
CAMEROTA: I -- oh, yes, that's right.
BERMAN: You better stick around for that, more importantly.
CAMEROTA: But even if it were -- even if it were voluntary I would stick around.
AVLON: I appreciate that.
CAMEROTA: Thank you.
OK, so the Trump campaign is hailing the president's performance, not surprisingly, but many Republicans think that President Trump went too far last night. Trump's former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci has some strong feelings about this. He's going to join us next.
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[06:48:18]
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: OK.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: His FBI director said.
CHRIS WALLACE, MODERATOR: Gentlemen, we're going to --
TRUMP: Well, then, you know what, he's wrong.
WALLACE: no, no, we're done -- we're done, sir!
BIDEN: Everybody -- everybody --
WALLACE: We're moving on to the next --
BIDEN: He's worked on it and I'm proud of him. I'm proud of my son.
TRUMP: But why was he given tens of millions of dollars?
WALLACE: All right --
BIDEN: But he was given tens of millions of dollars.
WALLACE: All right --
TRUMP: He was given tens of millions of dollars. BIDEN: That is totally --
WALLACE: President Trump --
BIDEN: The bounty on the heads of the American soldiers.
TRUMP: Your son got $3.5 million.
WALLACE: No, no, no --
BIDEN: Not true (ph).
WALLACE: Mr. President --
TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE).
BIDEN: And, by the way, my son --
WALLACE: Mr. -- wait a minute, Mr. President, your campaign agreed to -- both sides would get two-minute answers uninterrupted. Well, your -- your side agreed to it and why don't you observe what your campaign agreed to as a ground rule, OK, sir?
BIDEN: He never keeps his word. You can add --
TRUMP: Because he is -- he is a person (INAUDIBLE) --
WALLACE: No, no, no, I'm not asking -- that was a rhetorical question!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Well, that was President Trump using last night's debate to insult and interrupt over and over again. Our next guest called the debate an embarrassment to America.
Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci joins us now.
Anthony, great to see you.
Has President Trump gotten worse over the past four years? I mean four years ago, when he was in those debates, he had other candidates and he was able to sit through an answer when one of them was talking. He was able to get through a paragraph without lobbing an insult or interrupting like that. He seemed particularly red-faced and angrier.
What did you think is happening?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, he's got a record now. And so back then he didn't have a record. He was an entertainer/reality television star. Now he's the current president of the United States that's wrecked the economy. He's got 200,000 deaths on his watch. We all know that we could have had a way better outcome related to the pandemic had he just focused on the science.
So he was interrupting because he didn't know where to go.
[06:50:02]
Just imagine if you're on trial and you're about to be guilty as charged on the economy, guilty as charged on the pandemic and all the different things that he's done in terms of his incompetence, so he didn't want that for 90 minutes, so he kept interrupting. And so the reason why this was an embarrassment is that people all over the world are looking at this and saying, what -- what are you doing? There's no rulings of decorum or no rule of civility.
Now, there's nobody on Air Force One that would tell him the truth. But if they were flying back to Washington and he turned to somebody that was truthful, they would say, OK, that was a disaster, you broke every rule, you were rude to Joe Biden, you were rude to the moderator and it comes off ridiculous to the average voter.
Moreover, you more or less solidified for the American public that you're a full-on racist. So you may want to walk that back tomorrow with the whole stand back and stand by comments that you were making about the Proud Boys.
So, no one's going to do that to him, Alisyn, but they should do that if they want to salvage the campaign because right then and there they've frozen a lot of people away from the president.
BERMAN: I want to talk more about this a little bit, Anthony, because I think one of the most remarkable things about this debate is what we did hear after it from traditional supporters of President Trump. Rick Santorum, on our air last night and then again this morning, and Rick Santorum will defend the president for almost anything. He says, I think the president got hurt tonight, of the debate. Scott Jennings was on and thinks the president hurt himself with suburban women, a key swing group. Chris Christie, the guy who helped him prepare for the debate, said this.
Listen.
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CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER GOVERNOR, NEW JERSEY: I think, on the Trump side, it was too hot. I mean, you know, listen, you come in and decide you want to be aggressive. And I think that was the right thing to be aggressive. But that was too hot.
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BERMAN: So even the guy who helped him get ready thinks the president blew it last night.
Who's going to tell him? I mean what's the impact of this going to be? How is the president going to process this information?
SCARAMUCCI: Well, you just told him, John, because he -- he watches you on the air, and so you've told him, but nobody on the inside is actually going to tell him. So -- but where -- where Chris is going with this is, remember, nobody remembers what you say, they just remember how you feel. And 90 minutes, somebody shutting that off is like, OK, there's something wrong with this guy. There's a screw loose running around inside the system.
Oh, wait a minute, he has nothing to run on. He's -- he's been a disaster on the economy. He's made us weaker as it relates to our alliances around the world. He's made us sicker because he's politicizing the pandemic. His people are trying to tell people to wear masks. He's telling them not to wear masks. I mean it was an unmitigated disaster, the three and a half years.
So it was very clear what he was trying to do in the 90 minutes. It was literally, I'm going to get in the corner, I'm going to rope-a- dope Joe Biden so I can get off the debate stage and then I'm going to declare victory on Twitter. And so I don't think that that's going to work. I don't think this moved the polls.
And I think the vice president, in moments where he wasn't interrupted, he was speaking with great clarity. And he does have a plan. He's a compassionate guy. And he's a gentlemen, frankly, John. And he's the right person at the right time for this country. And he's going to win the election.
CAMEROTA: Anthony, President Trump couldn't even fake a condemnation of this hard-right white supremacist hate group. He couldn't even fake it. He was like, what -- what do you mean? What's the question? What do you want me to say? Well, what would that sound like? He couldn't even do it. I mean, at some point, we might have to start concluding that he likes white supremacist groups.
SCARAMUCCI: Well, I mean, come on, it was -- it was -- it couldn't have been more obvious. That's my point. If you're an aide to the president of the United States, you're like, I'm sorry. Now he says, sir, you know, sir -- sir, I'm sorry, sir, you just proved to 100 million people that you're a full-on racist. So do you want to try to walk that back or maybe we should fire somebody this morning, sir. You can blame it on somebody else, like you're always capable of doing.
But last night, you're basically telling the American people that you're a full-on white supremacist. So what would you like to do about that, sir? I mean that's got to be the conversation at some point this morning or last night on the way home on Air Force One.
BERMAN: What happens next, do you think, for the president after this?
SCARAMUCCI: Well, he's going to do what he does, he's going to triple down on the lying. He's -- he's recognized that when good people fail to act, bad people can get away with a lot of things. He's also astonished at the big lie. Demagogues like him are always saying this is -- well, I can't believe how much I'm getting away, let me push this. So today he'll start talking about how great he was. He'll go after Chris Wallace and say that he was on Joe Biden's side. He clearly wasn't. Just go look at the tape, because I watched it twice last night. He basically was trying to say, hey, you -- you agreed to these rules, but you're not abiding by these rules. And so that's what he'll do. They're very worried about the next
debate. They're very worried about him. He's got to take the orange paint down.
[06:55:02]
He had like -- almost like an auto paint orange going last night. And I -- I've got to tell you, there's a lot to do there for the president if he wants to sort of do better in the second debate. But if he comes in hot like that the second time, the moderators need to have a protocol in place to stop that, either cut the mic or go to a commercial, something, because you can't tolerate another debate like that in the second debate.
BERMAN: Yes, you can moderate a debate.
Anthony Scaramucci, thank you very much for being with us this morning.
SCARAMUCCI: Good to be here (ph).
BERMAN: So the Proud Boys, the Anti-defamation League calls them a violent white supremacist group. So why are they celebrating what the president said last night? CNN speaks to some of them, coming up.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: That was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck. That was the worst debate I have ever seen.
[07:00:00]
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think Donald Trump may have ended his presidency tonight with his performance.
CHRIS WALLACE, MODERATOR: Are you willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups?
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Say it.
