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White House Sows Confusion About Trump's Condition; Trump Releases New Video After COVID-19 Diagnosis; Vice President Mike Pence Plans to Hold Rallies Instead of Trump's Condition; Senate GOP's Third Positive COVID-19 Case Threatening Quick Amy Coney Barrett's Confirmation. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired October 03, 2020 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: What a confusing day.

I am Chris Cuomo, and welcome to the special edition of PRIME TIME.

Confusing, why? I can't tell you with any degree of confidence what the situation is with our president. I cannot tell you with any degree of certainty that we know what his case is like. We know his condition. Why? Two main reasons. One, a lack of trust with this White House and conflicting messages, and things that don't square with reporting that a source very close to this president.

You can think what you want about the relationship between the president and the media. But I will tell you this, as someone who's been doing this a very long time. I have never had, and many of us, have never had the kind of access to the presidency that we have with this president. People around him talk.

Now here is the confusing part about where things stand tonight. I have never been hit with a flood of mismatched stories the way I'm getting from people who know the president and know people around him. It's mind boggling. They range the spectrum of, he is absolutely fine, he really didn't want to go to the hospital but he had to, to they had no choice but to take him to the hospital. He was insisting, he was panicking, they had him on oxygen. He wanted the Remdesivir and they couldn't get it except in the hospital.

Who do we believe? What do we believe? The doctor came out today to give us something that seemed like it was more code than it was being candid. We don't know. I hear stories about the videos that we're seeing. So where does that leave us as journalists and as citizens?

We're going to have to go with what makes the most sense based on what we're being told. But I have to start with this tonight. I've never been in a situation where something this important is happening and we cannot trust the information that we're getting and therefore I don't know for sure what the true condition of the president of the United States is right now when it is a very serious circumstance.

He has a virus that can go anything from manageable over the course of a few days to a real battle. I am not talking about me and my battle. That is just an iota of our understanding. His physician is not painting as rosy a picture as he did just hours before when he told us the president was battling COVID very well. Trump himself seems uncertain, uncharacteristically uncertain of his fate.

And by the way, he should be. This is scary and uncertain, and all he can do is his best to rely on the treatment and let his body fight until he is better, and certainly, the one thing we know for sure, is that's what everybody should want. Certainly I do. I want him to get through this. I want his wife to get through this. And I want us all come together and start talking about what matters in a way where we can actually do something about this pandemic.

Our president being sick is a huge galvanizing point for this country. You can now no longer debate whether or not coronavirus is real. Whether this pandemic is real. Whether it's dangerous. Because our president, who has the best of everything and the best protection and has been telling you not to worry about it, is now sick. Sick enough to be in a hospital and be getting very significant treatment.

So with that as context here is the newly released message from the president tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm starting to feel good. You don't know over the next period of a few days, I guess that's the real test. So we'll be seeing what happens over those next couple of days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Four-minute message to you tonight. Is this the best sense of what's happening? I don't know. It's hard to know. It's hard to know when the tape was made. It's hard to know whether or not this is someone who doesn't want to cause panic or whether he is being the typical kind of cautiously optimistic that people are when they're sick.

Let's bring in chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta and also CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner.

Great to have you both so we can, Doc, do the reporting side with me and Jim and then the -- what the typical protocols are and what makes sense and what doesn't to you as a clinician at the same time.

Now, Jim, I want a debrief first from you. I know you and I are experiencing the same thing with this kind of deluge of disinformation, stories that don't make sense from people who should all be on the same page. What is your best reckoning from your sources of where things stand?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it flows on a couple different tracks, Chris. I think, first of all, we have to say, you know, a doctor is supposed to do no harm, right? And I think today Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, did a lot of harm today. He passed on what appears to be bad information to the American people when he painted this rosy assessment of the president's condition earlier today only to be contradicted by an official who spoke to the White House pool there outside Walter Reed, gathered outside Walter Reed.

[22:05:04]

We came to find out later through "The New York Times" and "The Associated Press" that that White House official was Mark Meadows, the chief of staff. I will tell you I also talked to a senior White House official earlier today who is contradicting what Dr. Conley said earlier today and saying that the president's condition yesterday was very serious and that is why they got him over to Walter Reed.

But let me just point out just in that vein, Chris, just to point out looking at the president's physician's statement this evening -- came out tonight, it says that he remains fever-free and off supplemental oxygen. Well, remember earlier today Dr. Conley was not really giving a definitive answer as to the issue of supplemental oxygen. We had to go through our sources to confirm that yes, the president was on supplemental oxygen yesterday.

And now Dr. Conley is acknowledging that in this statement. And I think anytime you have a White House physician, Chris, saying that the president of the United States is not out of the woods medically speaking, that is concerning. And I talked to a source familiar with the situation earlier this evening, Chris, who said it is a very good thing that President Trump is at Walter Reed tonight because his situation could go south very quickly and he needs to be careful, by the best out there and that's what they have at Walter Reed.

CUOMO: Well, Jim, I got to tell you, that's the best read I've heard in terms of what makes the most sense from all these different threads. So thank you for that.

Now let's have a little bit of a rolling conversation about what makes sense here. Obviously, Doc, you know, you don't have to be a clinician to know that you don't come off something that you were never on, right? So logically, if he had to come off supplemental oxygen, that means he was on supplemental oxygen.

So in context, when you treat a case like COVID-19, if he is in the hospital and they have done the things to him that they have done, what does that sound like to you in terms of least common denominator of what must be true about what they think of his condition?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, let's start with what is remarkably unusual about his treatment, which is that he received both the unapproved, still very experimental Regeneron monoclonal antibodies, and then a day later started a five-day course of Remdesivir. I don't think the combination of the monoclonal antibodies and the anti-viral Remdesivir has ever been given to the same patient ever anywhere. So think about that.

CUOMO: What does that mean? Does that mean he is getting better treatment or does it mean that it's more risky? Give us some context for the lay people. REINER: So think about this. They threw the kitchen sink at the

president at the very beginning of his illness. So it means one of two things. Either the president was extraordinarily ill at the very beginning of his illness or his team was extraordinarily panicked about the president at the beginning of his illness. They took an unprecedented step in medicine to combine those two therapies at the very outset of the illness.

The other wildcard is we don't know how panicked the patient was. So some of this -- some of the cadence of his therapies may have been dictated by the patient. So that's very unusual, number one. And it would be incredibly unusual for the patient to be that sick literally the day he turns positive. And it's an important point because we really don't know when the patient, the president, turned positive.

I think the best assumption is that he was infected at the September 26th SCOTUS announcement where we now see a large outbreak and there is plenty of video of unmasked non-social distanced meetings both inside and outside.

CUOMO: Right. But, Doctor, let me stop you for a second because we don't have to speculate, Doc, because, Jim, you have reporting about when they believe he first tested positive, yes?

ACOSTA: We are hearing tonight from one senior administration official that they believe at this point that this likely got started at that Supreme Court announcement event over here at the White House last Saturday. I will caution, though, we are talking to sources who are also telling us that that is not definitive yet, and that the White House medical unit is still doing the contact tracing and still trying to do its analysis.

So not a done deal. But, you know, as we know, Chris, we've been talking about this over the last 24 hours, that has been the best guess, the best theory all along because of the number of people who were infected with the coronavirus, tested positive for coronavirus after going to that event. Having said that, one little caveat.

You know, Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, Kellyanne Conway, the former White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway being at that Amy Coney Barrett event, they are part of the patient's debate team. And I suppose there is the potential that perhaps the debate team, the debate prep team somehow got infected and perhaps that is how this got started.

[22:10:08]

We just don't know yet. It's being tracked down. But one theory, yes, that the White House is looking at is that it started at this Amy Coney Barrett announcement.

REINER: But the point I was trying to make --

CUOMO: All right, so now let's take the message that he gave tonight -- go ahead, Doc. Make your point. REINER: I was just trying to say that we know that he was positive on

Thursday. But what the White House has declined to tell us is when was the last negative test he had. The White House has --

CUOMO: Right.

REINER: Has been saying that the president has -- you know, is tested every day, I don't think that's true. I don't think the president is tested every day. And it's important for us to know when the last negative test was because it's sort of impacts how infectious he could have been on Tuesday when he was in the presence of the former vice president during the debate. So I think from a public health --

CUOMO: And also just how much viral load --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Right. Exactly. Right.

REINER: Exactly.

CUOMO: In terms of his influence on others, you know, that's one concern. With all due respect to everybody else involved, I think the biggest concern has to be his health and the more you know about the testing regimen, the better you can surmise what kind of time span a viral load build-up we're dealing with here which gives a different understanding to how his body is dealing with the virus overall.

You know, the sooner it starts to hit him heavy, that means his body is having a struggle. And again this doesn't have to be dire. I got hit very hard early on in my exposure. So I'm OK now. You know, I made it. Yes, I'm younger than the president. But he doesn't get sick a lot. And many people in his age, most overwhelmingly make it through.

But, Doc, let me do something. I want to do a different exercise. I want to take the video that we have from him and I want to do it in chunks and go through what squares with our reporting, Jim, and what our understanding of the right clinical disposition, and we'll use this because we've got to start moving from he to the we. You know, the president being sick matters beyond Trump. It matters for this entire country. So here is his message broken into chunks. Here's the first chunk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I want to begin by thanking all of the incredible medical professionals, the doctors, the nurses, everybody, at Walter Reed Medical Center. I think it's the finest in the world for the incredible job they have been doing.

I came here, wasn't feeling so well. I feel much better now. We are working hard to get me all the way back. I have to be back because we still have to make America great again. We've done an awfully good job of that. But we still have steps to go and we have to finish that job. And I'll be back. I think I'll be back soon. And I look forward to finishing up the campaign the way it was started and the way we've been doing, the kind of numbers that we've been doing.

We've been so proud of it. But this was something that happened and it's happened to millions of people all over the world and I am fighting for them, not just in the U.S. I'm fighting for them all over the world. We're going to beat this coronavirus, or whatever you want to call it, and we're going to beat it soundly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: A couple of quick things. Jim, when do we believe that this video was made? I know that the offering is to suggest that it was made tonight. But can we know that for sure?

ACOSTA: Well, like everything around here, we may not know for sure because we're trusting officials who haven't always given us the best information. But hearing from a White House official that this was taped today, and the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, my understanding gave an interview this evening saying it was done a few hours ago. So we believe it was done today and that is our best information as of this moment.

I do think, just looking at the video, and you could tell that the president is sick. He does not seem himself. He seems sluggish. There is a political element to this. I think he is trying to assure his supporters that he's still, you know, doing OK and fighting on. He is saying I'm fighting for everybody else out there.

But, I mean, this is the president of the United States hospitalized with the coronavirus. There's just no way to spin this in a positive way. But I think that they're trying to make the best out of just a terrible situation.

CUOMO: Well, look, he seems good enough. But of course, it would require that he got out of whatever they had him in in the hospital and got redressed into basically what he had when he went in there. That's possible. It'd be unusual protocol. But this is an unusual situation.

Now, Doctor, you know, he says, you know, this just happened. No, it didn't. It happened because of what he wasn't doing. No matter what the testing protocol was, he wasn't wearing a mask, he wasn't social distancing, he was putting himself in lots of positions that you guys say we absolutely should not be in, and that's important for people to understand. This was not inevitable, certainly not for the president of the United States. Fair point?

REINER: Right. And we've been saying this for a long time, that the president has been extraordinarily cavalier with his own protection.

[22:15:03]

The president, you know, has not insisted that, in fact he has discouraged his staff from wearing masks around the White House. The president has steadfastly and famously refused to wear a mask in public. The president has tons of people in and business leaders, all kinds of meetings, all the time. You know, what I tell my patients is that if you want to survive this

pandemic and not get infected, make your viral footprint smaller. Go to the store once a week. Don't go every day. All right? And what this president should have done from the beginning and what his staff should have insisted is that he only meet with people on a really needed basis. All right. They needed to minimize his meetings. He needed to wear a mask.

CUOMO: Now that's a good point, Doctor.

ACOSTA: Right.

CUOMO: It takes us to the next part of the message. Takes us to the next part of the message that I want to play, and then I'll have you guys go on your way. I really appreciate this, Jim, especially the way you're grinding it around the clock, and on a Saturday night.

Let's just take this one other piece because it goes to your point, Doctor, about what the message is that this country has to hear from the president right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I had to be out front. And this is America. This is the United States. This is the greatest country in the world. This is the most powerful country in the world. I can't be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say, hey, whatever happens, happens. I can't do that. We have to confront problems. As a leader, you have to confront problems. There has never been a great leader that would have done that. So that's where it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, Doctor, I think this is an important moment. What he did by confronting the problem is he didn't confront the problem. He denied the existence of the problem and he invited people to do things that proved his point that you didn't have to be worried when he really should have been shut up into the Oval Office, shut up into the White House, and showing people this is the way we do business right now until we get through this.

It's a really important distinction. Even with him in the hospital and again wishing him well, people need to get the right message about that, don't they, Doctor?

REINER: Exactly. Look, the president is an essential worker. The same way physicians are and nurses are and grocery clerks are and bus drivers are and school teachers are. And they are not locked up in their house. No one has told them to be locked up in their house. But what they do is the right thing. They put a mask on. They social distance. They take some hand sanitizer and they do their best and they take care of themselves and they get the work done. And that's what the president should have done.

CUOMO: Yes. REINER: But he did not do that. He did not do that. Instead, he went

out, discouraged mask use and then held mass gatherings of unmasked supporters. He created the environment, you know, culminating in that September 26th event in the Rose Garden.

(CROSSTALK)

REINER: That's what he did.

ACOSTA: And hopefully now --

CUOMO: Go ahead. Jim, last word to you.

ACOSTA: No. I was just going to say I have been to so many of these rallies, and I was at his rally Wednesday night. And you know, the folks who cover him on a regular basis like myself, we have all been saying to each other, when is it going to happen? He keeps having these potential super-spreader events. When is it going to happen?

And as my mother used to say, you make your bed, you lie in it. And they are lying in it at this White House tonight. Not only is the president struck with the coronavirus and in the hospital, the first lady has the coronavirus, and now multiple administration officials, senators, members of the press are getting the coronavirus because of the irresponsibility that we see here on a daily basis. There's just no other way to put it, Chris.

CUOMO: Jim Acosta, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you both very well.

And for everybody at home, we can keep two thoughts in our head at the same time, which is I hope the president wows us with his resilience and comes out of there in a quarter of the time that others do. Great. But at the same time let where he is right now and how he is right now be a message. There can be no more debate about the right thing to do to protect ourselves from this virus.

The president is the strongest proof that the message he was giving was wrong for him to give. Now, we got to keep pressing for answers. Why? We only have one president, and if the White House is continuing to not play it straight with us, we have to dig because we all need the information. What should we believe and from whom?

More great minds on this true credibility crisis next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:23:16]

CUOMO: Once again we're in unchartered waters. Doctor says one thing. Chief of staff says another. President wasn't on any oxygen. President is no longer on any supplemental oxygen. When you can't get a straight answer you get nervous fast when you're dealing with the commander-in- chief and the president of the United States.

So let's get to the bottom of this clarity crisis. We got Susan Glasser, CNN global affairs analyst and staff writer for "The New Yorker," and Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for "The New York Times." They're also the authors of the new book "The Man Who Ran Washington." A biography of former White House chief of staff and secretary of State, James Baker.

Thank you both for joining me tonight.

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Thank you.

PETER BAKER, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. So only one question. What do you hear and what do you believe? Susan, I start with you.

GLASSER: I heard a lot of different things. I don't know about you today. I am exhausted from three different statements from the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, a press conference from the president's doctor that didn't exactly lead to a lot of confidence inspiring, to say the least. So I think, you know, already we're finding out that the situation on Friday was much more grave than the White House led us to believe.

You know, it seems to be kind of a full-blown credibility crisis already and we're only barely two days into what we know will be a long haul for the president in terms of this illness.

CUOMO: Peter, do you think it's just as likely, and again obviously in disrespect to Susan, I rely on her all the time and I'm hearing the same things. But what's the other story? The other version is no, they're throwing everything at him because they can, because we only have one president.

[22:25:04]

And they took him to the hospital not because he wanted to, because he hates the way that looks, but because why not? You only got one of him, let's get him through this as fast as possible.

BAKER: Yes, I definitely think that they would be more aggressive with this patient than the average patient. I mean, there's no question that they would go out of their way to avail themselves to every possible avenue for treatments. Particularly this is a president who's already experimented with treatments on his own anyway. Remember, even when he wasn't sick he took the hydroxychloroquine.

So he would be no doubt open to that kind of, you know, aggressive kind of action. But it was interesting. The most recent comments by Mark Meadows after three different sets of comments, as Susan pointed out, on FOX tonight was to say while the president is doing much better, he did admit he was doing really badly on Friday, worse than the White House had told us at the time, that his blood oxygen level dropped rapidly.

That's the word he used, rapidly. And you could imagine, what we're told anyway, how frightening or unsettling anyway that would be for the president. So I think he was probably pretty willing to go to the hospital at that point. At that point the hospital not only can monitor you better, but you know better than anybody, Chris, but it can also respond better to, you know, shortness of breath and the kind of trouble that he seemed to be having.

CUOMO: Listen, I have lived it. It can get scary fast. It's one thing when, you know, a journalist gets panicky about their own condition. The only people who hear you is whoever's on earshot of my basement. But it's another when it's the president of the United States and you have to do everything you can.

But why is this a tough call for us, Susan? Because have either of you ever dealt with a White House that is as inconsistent with the truth and consistent with disinformation as this one?

GLASSER: Well, that's right. I mean, look, it's in a crisis, of course. You know, you have to deal with whatever the weaknesses are of the system as you find it. And let's be real. You know, many White Houses have not been truthful with the American public when the president falls ill. And you know, in our new book about Baker, in fact, there's, you know, Reagan's assassination. They really did not tell the American public how close Reagan was to death until after he was already starting to be out of the woods.

But the problem with this White House is that it has a pre-existing condition of not being truthful with the American people to an epic scale. And I think we have already seen today and yesterday just an enormous amount of contradictory information. You know, leaking things to people. I mean, this could be studied as a worst-case for how to handle getting ahead of a crisis. I mean, it is the opposite of good crisis management.

CUOMO: Now, Peter, the irony is, and again, as I say, and I am going to say it every block of this show and every hour of television I do. We must hold two thoughts in our head at the same time. I hope the president wows us with his resilience, comes out showing nothing can take me, not even COVID, dealt with it in a fraction of the time as the average person. Beautiful.

But also this is absolutely a crystalline truth that his status right now, Peter, is proof positive that the message he's been putting out was the wrong one to put out.

BAKER: Yes, I think those are two important thoughts to have at the same time. You're right about that. I mean, obviously as Americans we have to hope that our president recovers as speedily and quickly and fully as possible. And I think you're right also. We also have to look at how this happened and how this happened was because you had a president who was in denial about the severity of this crisis and taking, you know, the kind of steps that everybody told him not to take.

Huge events, no masks, no social distancing. I was at one of the rallies in Pennsylvania not that long ago. I looked around and thought, it's going to be amazing to see in one week what happens here. In that case, it didn't happen. But as Jim told you earlier we've all been sitting there waiting for the day it was going to happen and now it seems to have arrived.

CUOMO: Look, the good news is today I came into a couple of guys who had their Trump flag flying and they had masks on. The bad news is they called it to my attention and said well, we have to now that everybody is trying to kill the president. So again, messaging matters. We've got to wear masks and we have to wear it for the right reasons.

The president is sick. We hope he gets better. And the way we all avoid getting sick is by wearing masks because they help. It's got to be good news to have good outcomes.

Susan Glasser, Peter Baker, thank you to both of you. Good luck with the book. It is the right time to read it. "The Man Who Ran Washington," all about Jim Baker. Worth the read.

All right. In this uncertain time the vice president, got to talk about him, right? Now, what is he going to do? He is going to go out and do campaign events just like Trump was doing. How can that be the right message? Why is the president where he is? How? How can we not be learning this lesson? What price must we pay?

[22:30:03]

The second in line? You may have to take over the powers if the president is staying there for too long. True story. MAGA rally next week. Let's discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Our only good choice right now is to play the president's situation to advantage for him in terms of his health and us in terms of our health, all right? The message is so clear. We have to take the right precautions, OK?

The president, the vice president now must understand the risk that they were posing to themselves and, as a result, to the republic. There is no other way to explain how the VP is still thinking about going out and campaigning except to say he knows the message and he is ignoring it. People like Mark Meadows, Ivanka and Jared Trump, they are still going to work. The Treasury secretary is still meeting with congressional leaders.

The AG is putting the DOJ at risk and so on. They all tested negative and look, God willing they stay that way. Science willing they stay that way. Right? I hope it happens. But the guidelines are clear. You're supposed to stay home for 14 days. Being negative in one moment does not mean you're negative, period. It takes time for this virus to build.

[22:35:03]

I was negative and I was positive two days later. You don't have to believe me.

Bringing Dr. Ashish Jha, nobody understands this better than him. Doc, a pleasure.

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Chris, thanks for having me on.

CUOMO: Speak your truth, brother. What is the, first of all, the bottom line in terms of what you're supposed to do when you've been around somebody who you know has the virus in close proximity, for extended periods even if you get a rapid test that dings negative?

JHA: Yes. So this is not a close call, Chris. The CDC guidelines are very clear on this and they are very accurate on this. You're supposed to quarantine yourself for 14 days. Now, people say, well, what if I have a negative test? Can I get out of quarantine? And the short answer is no, and the reason is because there is an incubation period for the virus. And the typical person it might be five to seven days, but sometimes it could last 10 days. So that means you could be negative five or seven days out and still then turn positive. So it's really critical that if you've been around somebody who's been infected, quarantine 14 days.

CUOMO: Right. And just so, you know, we're clear about this, I had symptoms. I thought I had a sinus infection, OK? Here is Sanjay's map. I got a test. I was negative. Two days later the symptoms were much worse. I was positive and then I went right downhill. So you see the incubation period. Right? So you see the little green spots? That's you're exposed to the virus. Now incubation means it's growing in your body, OK?

The infectious period is once it gets to a point and your body where you are contagious, but that doesn't mean you are feeling the symptoms. Then comes the symptomatic period. Obviously, you're still infectious. And then you have that last level, pre-symptomatic, but infectious, which means what I just said before. You don't feel like crap yet, but you can spread it. That's when we're talking about a potential super-spreader, Doc, right?

Somebody who's got so much viral load that they are indeed very contagious. They just don't know it yet by how they feel.

JHA: Absolutely. So one of the things that we've been worried about, for instance, is that if the president started feeling badly on Thursday, or even Wednesday, but felt OK on Tuesday, he was probably contagious on Tuesday, which is why we've all been worried about Vice President Biden and whether he's gotten infected or not. And I am sure whoever came to the party on Saturday night at the Rose Garden who then spread it to a large number of people probably felt fine. But unfortunately they did super-spread this and, of course, a lot of people ended up getting infected.

CUOMO: Yes, important perspective to have because part of contact tracing is some people don't want to tell you. They're nervous, they're embarrassed. Here maybe a little scared. Don't be. You know, if you don't know you're sick, you can't be held responsible for that, especially in our testing environment where nobody is getting tested enough so you really can't know. And when you do get tested, too often it's the wrong kind of test. Now the big question, which is actually a no-brainer. The idea of the

vice president going out and doing Trump-like rallies while the president is fighting the virus in the hospital from doing Trump-like rallies. Is this not the definition of insanity?

JHA: It's very risky, it's dangerous, it's bad for the country. I mean, look, the bottom line is that right now we need to protect the vice president. He is obviously next in line. And if the president were to get sicker, he may not be able to carry out his duties and we're going to need the vice president healthy and going -- and be ready to take over at any moment. So the idea that he is going to go out and hold rallies just strikes me as incredibly dangerous, not cautious, not focused on, you know, what is good for the country right now.

CUOMO: Yes. Just what do you care about? Whom do you care about? At some point you have to surrender the interest of me to the we, especially in their positions.

Doctor Ashish Jha, thank you as always for keeping us on the straight path.

JHA: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: Appreciate it.

So again, the news we all know and regret. The president is in the hospital. Same virus that's killed more than 208,000 of us in this country. He is still uplaying how much we've rounded the corner, even as reality has smacked him and his family and the rest of us in the face.

One of his great biographers is here to slice through the fiction to the core of where it's all coming from with this president next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:43:26]

CUOMO: We're learning tonight that White House aides pushed the president to go to Walter Reed. Now, when I say we are learning tonight, this is one version of what's being put out in terms of what led to the hospitalization. I have to qualify it because I have heard from multiple sources that he wanted to go as well. The Remdesivir is something that really portends your needing to be in the hospital.

So why would he be against going to the hospital? That's an obvious, right? Because of optics and what that would suggest to us and the fear of panic on the practical side, right, and image. This idea of invincibility. And the question becomes hubris. Are you too worried about how you are seen and not enough about how you have to act?

Let's talk to someone who understands this better than most because he literally wrote a book on it. Good friend, mentor, Timothy O'Brien, author of "Trump Nation," somebody who has literally been reporting on this president with me I don't even want to say how long. Certainly over 15 years.

So, Tim, I know that you have been working sources as well, and there is this confusing flood of crossing stories about what's going on even as you get closer to the Trump circle. How do you explain it?

TIM O'BRIEN, SENIOR COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG OPINION: You know, in a world that we're in right now, Chris, which is an other-worldly news cycle, when you just think about the events of this week and the extent to which, in a series of significant events, Trump gets essentially exposed.

[22:45:07]

The week begins with his tax returns coming out, and there are hard numbers that show he's never been the businessman he claims to be. He goes into a debate on Wednesday and a man who is fomented bigotry and racism and is a racist himself, cannot say in the middle of a debate that he will disavow white supremacy. And then we roll into the wee hours of Friday morning and a president who's been denying the severity of the most epic public health crisis the country has ever faced comes down himself with the very illness that he has claimed on different occasions was a hoax.

And he presides over a White House that essentially a cult of personality. Everyone lives in fear of, as you correctly put your finger on it, the optics. They care more about how things look more than how things get done. They care more about how things look than how other people feel. They care more about how things look than the good of the country. And no one there operates publicly without getting signed off by a very tiny handful of people. And their only goal is to make the president look invincible. And the problem you have --

CUOMO: So --

O'BRIEN: -- this week is an escalating series of events that make him not only look weak, but possibly morbid.

CUOMO: Cheats on his taxes. Has problems with separating the ugly from the passionate in terms of his followers. We know these things, or you and I certainly knew them. And now everybody knows them and suspected them when it comes to his money and business acumen. But now you have an existential crisis. God willing he blows this virus away and comes rolling out in no time, but they can't even get their stories straight about this.

Tim, the doctor says one thing. Mark Meadows says another. He is a pro, OK? Two different stories about how he got to the hospital. Two different stories about how he is doing.

O'BRIEN: When he was diagnosed, we still don't know actually. There's been conflicting stories about when the diagnosis --

CUOMO: When? Or if he's being tested?

(CROSSTALK) O'BRIEN: Oxygen, at what point did he go on oxygen? You know, Dr. Conley today in the beginning of that presser first said no oxygen, no oxygen today, then he said no oxygen yesterday when pressed by reporters, but he wouldn't say if Trump was on oxygen at some point. And we now know from reporting out there that of course he was on oxygen at some point. But why not tell us when --

CUOMO: Right. And by the way, we weren't being picky. Saying he is no longer on oxygen obviously by implication suggests he was. Why would they lie about that? Well, we don't want to worry you.

What is the line for you, Tim, between perception and reality in terms of what kind of message must be truthful for the American people in a context like this?

O'BRIEN: They have to be absolutely transparent and they have to stick to the facts because this is not just an issue of Donald Trump's health. It's an issue of national security and it's an issue of the faith the American people have in the word of the federal government at a time when it needs to be pristine. And the problem again is that you have a White House that has routinely operated by spinning, dissembling, or lying about any event that they think reflects poorly on it, and this now has landed on them like an anvil and they are still falling back on their own ways.

It's incredible to me that, you know, that press conference was supposed to begin at 11:00 today. It was 40 minutes late. I think they were figuring out their line of argument was going to be and they still blew it and Mark Meadows was at odds with what they were saying at Walter Reed. It's an -- you know, it's more than just the gang that couldn't shoot straight. These are incredibly fourth rate people brought into the Oval Office by someone who is ill to lead and they are all shooting in opposite directions.

CUOMO: Look, and I'll tell you why it matters beyond the politics and the dodges and the character analysis. They say now that he got his first positive result Thursday. So does that mean he wasn't tested between Saturday and Thursday? Was he tested before and negative? When? They won't tell us. Why does it matter?

O'BRIEN: And recall --

CUOMO: Facts. understanding the progression of the disease, but also the nature of keeping our president safe.

Tim, I got to go. I am out of time. But I appreciate you, especially on a Saturday.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: You're always here for us. And I appreciate you, brother. You and the family stay healthy.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, now more implications. What else is going on right now? Where did it start? Theoretically at a Rose Garden ceremony for his nominee to the Supreme Court. Well, now you have two or three senators sick who may be necessary for the vote. Is it going to slow the process? Should it slow the process? What does it mean for the process?

[22:50:03]

Let's go through the permutations of thought because these are all big issues and we have to be on the same page of what matters to the extent that we can.

Breaking news coverage continues live from Capitol Hill next.

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CUOMO: What a difference a week makes, right? A week ago, about now, the Republicans were having a parade to their perfidy. Yay, we didn't get Merrick Garland in, but now we're going to change our principles because we can play to advantage. Yay. And they got Amy Coney Barrett, the nomination, the Rose Garden.

Now look where you are. They're faced with some uncertainty after three Republican senators tested positive at their gloat parade. What does that mean for the nomination?

Phil Mattingly, on the Hill with the latest. The operative day is what, October 19th? What are they thinking? That does this clears up by then? Does it clear up the calculus in terms of the politics involved or is it just a waiting game?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a little bit of all three. And I'll extend what you were saying, Chris, a little bit further a week ago, this nomination, this nominee was on cruise control. They knew they had the votes, they knew they can move it before the election. They knew they could get this done in a matter of weeks. That is still the intent.

[22:55:02]

Senate majority Mitch McConnell saying they're still full steam ahead on this nomination. But now things are very, very fluid. Two of those three Republican senators sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Obviously that committee is scheduled to start hearings on Amy Coney Barrett on October 12th. That's nine days from now. And the expectation is that they will still do that. It's still planned, it's still scheduled. And even though senators have tested positive, they can attend those hearings virtually.

But the big question right now, now that Senate majority leader has delayed Senate action until October 19th is when can those senators return? They have to be physically present, Chris, in order to get Amy Coney Barrett's nomination out of the committee, and then once it gets out of the committee, Senate majority Mitch McConnell has a very, very narrow margin to work with when it comes to actually getting the votes to confirm Amy Coney Barrett. Two Republican senators have already said they would not go along with

it. He can only afford to lose one more. That means he needs the senators healthy. And no more positive, Chris.

CUOMO: As long as it's just about the quarantine period. They're find as long as it doesn't shift politics. What are we learning more and more all the time, Phil? The only lesson, we keep relearning and it doesn't sink in completely, at least for me. You never know what will happen next.

Phil Mattingly, thank you for helping us, especially on a Saturday night. Appreciate it.

We'll be right back.

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CUOMO: Welcome back to a special Saturday night special coverage. I'm Chris Cuomo.