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New Day
Nearly 206,000 Americans Killed By Coronavirus, 7.1 Million Cases; Undecided Ohio Voters Weigh In On Contentious First Debate; Trump Downplays Pandemic Unemployment Crisis. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired September 30, 2020 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Coronavirus cases this morning increasing in 26 states. Another 914 Americans died on Tuesday and there were more than 42,000 new cases in America.
Joining us now is CNN political commentator and epidemiologist, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Dr. El-Sayed, thank you very much for being here.
Let's talk about New York for a second because schools just opened here and they opened on the same day that the New York City positivity rate went to three percent. So it had been one percent and now it's at three percent. We're told that some of this spike is contained in specific neighborhoods, but I don't know if that should be comforting to doctors like you.
[05:35:14]
DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERT (via Cisco Webex): Well, particularly considering how bad New York took it on the chin earlier in this pandemic, at the earliest phase, this really is concerning. And, yes, as far we know there are some clusters of outbreak, which means that it's a lot easier to contain than if the general positivity rate was just high all over the city.
That being said, New York is a very densely populated place and so a small spike in a small community can become a large spike across the community pretty quickly. So that really is concerning.
And then more broadly, this is the fall and epidemiologists have been predicting that the fall was going to be a challenging time for COVID- 19 in terms of increasing transmission across the country. And the fact that we have 26 states where cases are increasing has to be really concerning considering the fact that it's getting colder and people are moving inside and indoors more often for some of these activities that may spread the virus.
Schools are back. Colleges have been, frankly, a real challenge point for transmission. So this doesn't bode well. BERMAN: Again, it needs to be at three percent for a week in New York City in order for schools to close back down or take action. But to see that kind of change in one day is troubling and I think you're seeing it in certain other communities around the country as well.
A little bit of positive news, Dr. El-Sayed, which I want your take on, is Regeneron has been testing this antibody cocktail. Explain what that is and the promising results they're reporting.
EL-SAYED: Well, any news about a treatment for COVID-19 is good news. What this idea of a -- of an antibody cocktail is that you can take antibodies and you can basically engineer them -- make them in a test tube -- that you think will have reactivity to the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, and will help teach the body how to deal with it.
So the thing about antibodies is it's the body's natural way of responding to a virus like this. And what antibodies do is they coat the virus and then there are cells that respond to the antibodies and kick up the immune response.
And so the idea here is that maybe the body isn't making the antibodies as fast. It takes a long time the first time you see a virus. So if we give the body a leg up with these synthetic antibodies -- this cocktail that they call it -- then the body's immune cells can recognize this virus and fight it faster and potentially beat it off without the kind of symptoms that can kill folks. So this really is good news.
At the same time, we're still waiting to see the data. So we've seen a press release from Regeneron and, of course, they have a lot of incentive to get their information out there because, of course, they are a business. But what we're waiting to see is the data. The studies that show exactly how much of an immune response, which patients, and how they compare relative to controls.
And I think it's really important for all of us to be prudent and wait for that data to come out before we truly do pass judgment. But it is good news that there is the potential for a new treatment online and it could save a lot of lives.
CAMEROTA: We'll take any good news that we have on the horizon. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, thank you very much.
How do voters in crucial swing states feel about last night's debate?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was agreeing with a lot of what President Trump was saying. But it's not what he says, it's how he says it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: CNN talks to 14 undecided voters in Ohio. That's next.
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[05:43:09]
BERMAN: So, before the debate, they were all undecided -- 14 voters from the swing state of Ohio. CNN's Ana Cabrera watched the debate with them to see if it helped them decide.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR, WEEKEND CNN NEWSROOM (on camera): Show of hands if you've decided who you will vote for.
CABRERA (voice-over): That was before all the action -- before this happened.
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR, DEBATE MODERATOR: Mr. President, can you let him finish, sir.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The question is -- the question is --
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The new Supreme Court justice, radical left --
BIDEN: Will you shut up, man.
CABRERA (on camera): Why did you feel like it was disastrous?
KEVIN, OHIO VOTER: Well, President Trump clearly has control issues and he couldn't stop his anger.
CABRERA (on camera): What was going through your mind?
ANDRE, OHIO VOTER: It was frustrating. I thought it would have been nice to hear someone's response but it just got -- like, it was too much going on and I just ended up kind of turning both of them off.
BIDEN: Do you have any idea what this clown's doing?
CABRERA (on camera): How'd that resonate with you?
ERIC, OHIO VOTER: I feel like, you know, he's the commander in chief -- you've got to respect him. Whether you like him or you don't like him he's still the President of the United States. He should be addressed as such.
AIMEE, OHIO VOTER: It was like watching my own children having a disagreement at home and having -- you know, I kept having these urges to want to step in -- you know, use my mom voice.
CABRERA (voice-over): This group, watching the debate in an outdoor venue because of the coronavirus, wanted to hear plans for dealing with the pandemic.
BIDEN: Two hundred thousand dead.
TOM, OHIO VOTER: I thought it was very disingenuous of Biden to blame the deaths on Trump. I thought that was just totally wrong. CABRERA (on camera): Are you confident in Trump's leadership currently with the pandemic?
TOM, OHIO VOTER: I think that -- I think he's following the science.
KEVIN, OHIO VOTER: We're leading the world in people who died because of coronavirus because our national response has been bad. It's been poor. It's been spotty. It hasn't been well-led.
CABRERA (on camera): Do you feel Joe Biden had a vision for how he would lead?
KEVIN, OHIO VOTER: You know, that's a hypothetical question I don't really honestly think anybody can answer. He wasn't -- he wasn't in place.
[05:45:06]
CABRERA (on camera): What about the economy and what you heard tonight?
SIMON, OHIO VOTER: Well, the numbers don't lie. The unemployment rate went down to one of the lowest rates it's ever been before the pandemic started.
MARIA, OHIO VOTER: That's where Trump, I think, is the strongest, is in the economy. He did create jobs. We've seen that. We've seen the lowest unemployment in years.
CABRERA (voice-over): But when it comes to questions about taxes -- specifically, Trump's taxes --
BIDEN: Show us your taxes then.
TRUMP: I paid $38 million one year. I paid $27 million one year.
BIDEN: Show us your tax returns.
CABRERA (on camera): Did you feel like he answered the questions you might have on that issue?
ANDRE, OHIO VOTER: No. There was -- there was a lot of not answering questions, which is frustrating.
GERI, OHIO VOTER: I don't care how much he paid as long as it's a legal avenue to go upon. I know that there are billionaires who pay less taxes than other people because they have different deductions and things like that. But be honest about it.
CABRERA (voice-over): These voters were more concerned about the racial divide in the country and liked Joe Biden's unifying message.
BIDEN: It's about equity and equality. It's about decency. It's about the Constitution. And we have never walked away from trying to acquire equity for everyone -- equality for the whole of America. TRUMP: You have treated the black community about as bad as anybody
in this country. You did the 19 -- and that's why if you look at the polls, I'm doing better than any Republican has done in a long time.
FRANDIE, OHIO VOTER: As a person of color, it's my life. I -- there's no way to avoid it or to get around it. So, seeing a leader who doesn't necessarily speak on that, as President Trump did during this debate, was disappointing.
CABRERA (on camera): What more do you need from either of these candidates?
ERIC, OHIO VOTER: I just -- I'm looking for transparency and accountability.
GERI, OHIO VOTER: I want someone to speak to the issues. No banter, no back-and-forth.
I want -- I think I'm going to get my answers by researching myself and reading. I don't think that the debate -- any future debate is going to be any different than tonight. I wish it was but I don't think it will be.
CABRERA (voice-over): Ana Cabrera, Westerville, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: OK, there's so much there. The woman who likened it to her child, that is how I felt also.
Chris Wallace spoke to President Trump at times like a parent does when your child is having a temper tantrum. Like, OK, OK, you're going to like this next question. I promise you're going to like this next question if you can just tamp it down.
BERMAN: Like a bad parent. Like a parent who lets kids get away with murder.
CAMEROTA: In the mall. A parent whose kid --
BERMAN: A kind of parent you would judge.
CAMEROTA: In the mall.
BERMAN: No, you would never let your kids get away with that. That was how you talk to a brat. That was how you talk to a brat that doesn't reform.
CAMEROTA: I'm telling you, as if there was a temper tantrum happening -- and there was a temper tantrum happening.
BERMAN: You're going to get some candy. You're going to get some candy. Just stop yelling as much as you are.
I just want to tell people -- we talk about undecided voters. The ABC News poll out of Pennsylvania that showed Joe Biden with 54 and Donald Trump with 45 -- they were about to find almost no undecided voters at this point. So it is a dwindling group of people.
CAMEROTA: Fascinating to hear from them, though.
BERMAN: President Trump, last night, boasted about the U.S. economy bouncing back. This is as the recovery shows signs of stalling. We have a fact-check, next.
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[05:52:39]
CAMEROTA: President Trump, again, tried to downplay the current unemployment crisis, but millions of Americans are still out of work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We closed it down and now we're reopening, and we're doing record business. We had 10.4 million people in a four-month period that we've put back into the workforce. That's a record the likes of which nobody's ever seen before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: OK.
CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here with an economic fact-check. Hi, Christine.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Good morning, Alisyn.
You know, the president there, downplaying the job crisis that millions of Americans are living through at this very moment. Yes, more than 10 million jobs created from May to August, but the sheer size of the jobs crash was so unprecedented it erased nearly a decade of job market gains.
The economy is still down 11 1/2 million jobs. And the pandemic puts Trump in a jobs hole, down 4.7 million jobs since he came into office. Now, of course, that's because of the virus.
But even before the pandemic, it wasn't the Trump jobs miracle that he tries to claim. In the first three years of the Trump presidency, job growth trailed the last three years of the Obama years. But this is how the president tries to sell it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There has never been an administration that's done what I've done. The greatest -- before COVID came in, the greatest economy in history. Lowest employment -- unemployment numbers. Everything was good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Always rebranding. The U.S. economy had been growing for 10 years but it wasn't the greatest in history. The recovery was underway before Trump took office.
GDP growth briefly revved up after those 2017 tax cuts. But sustained growth above four percent -- look at that -- it was elusive. The Obama years look a lot like the Trump years in terms of GDP. It never was that rocket ship growth that the president promised.
Now, faster economic growth is likely for the third quarter -- we expect that. But that's because the economy crashed in the second. The president, true to form, ignores the pain and exaggerates the recovery. He even takes credit for only that part of the cycle.
And there is still pain. The jobless rate in August was 8.4 percent. Even if it falls a little bit, as expected, that's still the worst jobless rate ever heading into a presidential election.
And the layoffs continue. Disney just announced 28,000 layoffs. This is still happening.
COVID is still here. The economy did not turn on like a light switch like he claims. There needs to be leadership for how to navigate the virus before the economy gets back to normal.
[05:55:06]
CAMEROTA: It is so good to get your context. Thank you very much, Christine.
ROMANS: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: We really appreciate it.
A stunning moment. The President of the United States refused to condemn white supremacist violence or white supremacists. The most jaw-dropping moments of the debate, next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm just going to say it like it is -- that was a shit show.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He took the presidency and the office of the presidency to a new low.
WALLACE: Are you willing to condemn white supremacists?
TRUMP: Almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not from the right-wing.
BIDEN: This is a president who has used everything as a dog whistle to try to generate racist hatred.
