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Trump Makes Return to White House Despite Infection; White House Blocks FDA on Vaccine Guidance. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 06, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SEAN CONLEY, WHITE HOUSE PHYSICIAN: Though he may not entirely be out of the woods yet, the team and I agree that all our evaluations support the president's safe return home.

[05:59:33]

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: He writes this tweet saying you don't have to fear COVID. We have to fear COVID. It is a contagious, deadly disease.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: What is this macho thing I'm not going to wear a mask? Big deal. If it hurts you? Be patriotic, for God's sake.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They live inside a different reality over here at the White House, because a deadly virus is circulating inside the West Wing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the 11th day in a row of increased hospitalizations week over week. This is not a good trend.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: Our level of baseline number of cases per day is higher than I want to see it. It's stuck at 40,000.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. Two hundred and ten thousand, one hundred and eighty-one Americans are dead from coronavirus.

Nearly 7.5 million Americans have been infected. The average daily case rate is rising.

Right here on this show, Dr. Anthony Fauci told us he is disturbed and concerned. This morning, the fact is, denial won't help you. Makeup won't help you. And based on what we've just heard and seen, the president won't help you. Now, masks will help you, but the president made a grand theatrical

gesture of whipping his off at his "Sunset Boulevard" return to the White House.

Social distancing will help you, but the president is flouting isolation. And he walked into a White House that has become a coronavirus hot zone. Caution, not to mention empathy might help you, but the president, who had a case bad enough to be hospitalized, receive oxygen at least twice, and require experimental drugs, he says don't be afraid of COVID.

The president is back at the White House receiving much of the same care that he had in the hospital at Walter Reed. His doctors say he is improving. That's good. But there is much they are withholding. So much.

Have the president's lungs been damaged? Does he have pneumonia? When was his last negative test? This matter is not just for his health, but dozens, maybe hundreds of others who came in contact with him and are largely not, as of now, being called in any kind of organized contact tracing effort.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Also breaking overnight, "The New York Times" reports that top White House officials are blocking new safety guidelines that would push the emergency release of a vaccine past election day. The scientists do not want to rush this before it's ready, but the president wants a faster timeline.

The FDA tells CNN those guidelines are under review.

And we're just four weeks away from the election, and CNN has new poll numbers showing how this past week has changed the race for President Trump. Former Vice President Joe Biden now leads President Trump by 16 points. We think that is the largest spread we can remember in this entire race. We will dive deeper in those numbers coming up.

But let's begin with CNN's Joe Johns, who is live for us at the White House. What a 24 hours, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's for sure, Alisyn. And if there was any expectation that the president was going to change direction on the coronavirus after testing positive, it was not on display last night. He was downplaying it on Twitter.

And when he got back here to the White House, he did a little photo op and then took off his mask before walking into the building where a lot of people were.

His advisers have been telling him, some of them at least, that he ought to have stayed in the hospital. And his doctors say he's not out of the woods yet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): A reckless return to the White House for President Trump, leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center just 72 hours after being admitted for coronavirus treatment.

While likely contagious, Trump still removing his mask on the White House balcony to pose for photos in his highly-produced homecoming before going inside.

As the coronavirus has killed more than 210,000 Americans, the president's move stunning some health experts.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's unexplainable that the president of the United States, who's actively shedding virus in millions of particles, would walk into that building with the enormous number of staff, unmasked, shedding virus in the air in that building. It's really hard to understand how no one told him not to do that.

JOHNS: Earlier, Trump announcing his planned departure from the hospital in a tweet writing, "Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life. I feel better than I did 20 years ago."

Despite allowing him to go home, the president's physician says he's still not fully clear of COVID-19.

CONLEY: Though he may not entirely be out of the woods yet, the team and I agree that all our evaluations and, most importantly, his clinical status, support the president's safe return home, where he'll be surrounded by world-class medical care 24/7.

JOHNS: Trump's medical team again refusing to say when he last tested negative for the coronavirus. And according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, it may still be too soon to tell if the disease has run its course.

FAUCI: The issue is that he's still early enough in the disease that it's no secret that, if you look at the clinical course of people, sometimes when you're five to eight days in, you could have a reversal. It's unlikely that it will happen, but they need to be heads-up for it.

JOHNS: Following a whirlwind weekend that included putting his own Secret Service detail at risk to wave at supporters, and Trump's claims that his health is improving, the outbreak within the White House continues.

[06:05:00]

Press secretary Kaleigh McEnany joining the growing list of Trump administration officials testing positive.

Former Vice President Joe Biden reporting another negative test for the virus and asking President Trump to follow safety guidelines and stop downplaying the pandemic.

BIDEN: The only thing I heard was one of the tweets saying that, you know, don't be so concerned about all this, essentially. There's a lot to be concerned about; 210,000 people have died. So it's a great concern. I hope no one walks away with the message thinking that it is not a problem. It's a serious problem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Big picture, the U.S. is entering a potentially dangerous period with this pandemic as flu season approaches. So far, 22 states are reporting a rise in cases. Twenty-four states are holding steady. There's nothing on the president's public schedule today so far.

John, back to you.

BERMAN: All right. Joe Johns, please stay healthy at the White House and keep us posted throughout the course of the morning.

Joining us now, Abby Phillip, CNN political correspondent; John Harwood, CNN White House correspondent; and Dr. Peter Hotez. He's the dean of National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

And friends, there is so much to talk about this morning. Obviously, we will discuss the president's health over the course of the show, but this morning, I think the bigger concern is for the public health, Dr. Hotez.

And we're looking at 210,000 Americans dead. We're seeing a rise in new daily cases, and the president in that "Sunset Boulevard" gesture, whipped his mask off in front of the American people on the nightly news last night.

So, as a doctor whose job it is -- you know, take it off, please. Don't even put it on the screen. Please take it off, because that's going to kill people, Dr. Hotez. And I want to know what you thought when you saw that last night.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: So John, I think you hit upon the most important point that Americans need to know this morning. We have some pretty good modeling projections coming out of the Institute for Health Metrics.

And what it says is how we behave over the next few months will determine whether we have 270,000 dead Americans by the end of this year or over 400,000 dead Americans. And to go -- whether or not we're at 272 instead of 400,000, all depends on the country adopting masks, everybody wear masks, everybody engage in that appropriate social distancing. We have the contact tracing in place.

And the president has sent a message to the American people: Let's go for the 400,000 number. Take off your mask, be defiant. We can beat this virus. It's -- it's all hype. And what he did was to put the American people in danger by -- by his actions, because people follow his lead. People -- many people find him very compelling and -- and will do and follow all of his actions and his statements and his tweets. And he put out the message that, let's let this thing rip, don't let it interfere with your daily activities, don't be fearful. Let's have 400,000 Americans dead.

CAMEROTA: John Harwood, there was a lot of concern for people inside the White House last night after he took off his mask. And we know from doctors he's still shedding virus, and he walked in.

But at this point, their eyes are wide open. They know who they work for. I mean, this wasn't a surprise to anyone who works for him. The White House is a coronavirus hot spot right now. They're having an outbreak. At least a dozen people -- let me put up the names -- who have been in contact with President Trump are now either sick or have tested positive.

Those two black squares that you see are unnamed journalists, who you know, obviously just by doing their job, came in contact with it at the White House.

So they know. They're prepared that the president, you know, is flouting any sort of medical advice and wants to have this kind of, I guess, FDR moment. There's nothing to fear. Except a deadly pandemic that can debilitate or kill you.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, they know who they work for, but they still work for him. They need to show up and do their jobs.

Now, yesterday a lot of people did not show up. The West Wing was pretty empty, and lights were off.

But, look, you know, we talk about in public service the concept of servant leadership, people who are selfless in how they lead, and they're concerned about the welfare of the people who follow them. President Trump is the opposite of that. The -- his leadership is all devoted to the service of his ego, and that is now leaving a trail of wreckage behind him.

His campaign manager; his press secretary; his close aide Hope Hicks; his wife, Melania Trump; multiple Republican allies in the Senate and elsewhere. It is staggering the way in which this president's compulsions, his priorities are getting people sick.

[06:10:07]

And as Dr. Hotez just indicated, over the next couple of months, they're quite likely to get a lot of Americans killed by the fact that he is unwilling to lead in a way that shows concern for others, that tries to account for the feelings, the impacts of his action on other people.

And the -- you know, he's doing this as he's facing a difficult re- election campaign. But what we're seeing is that, now that this pandemic is something that has created tremendous amount of public health destruction, economic destruction, people are living that experience, they are registering that with their sentiments.

That the fact that the president is behind by 16 points in our poll, that is consistent with the way his standing has gone backwards over the last several weeks. So he is continuing to act in a way that he's compelled to act; but the American people are rendering a judgment about his actions, and it's not good for him. BERMAN: Look, John, it's a great point. I think we all care much more

about public health. We all care more about the people who could be sickened or killed by the president's message last night. But not for nothing. It's hurting him politically also.

Abby Phillip, to you. An opportunity for empathy. An opportunity for telling the American people, I hear you, I feel -- literally feel the pain you've been feeling now for seven months.

"The New York Times" has a story this morning, Abby, that says that some of the president's advisers thought that this might be -- you know, might be a moment where he could turn to them and offer a new tone. And I hesitate to even use those words in association with Donald Trump. But "The Times" makes a point he went the opposite way.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: As he almost always does. I mean, the reality is that there is never a new Donald Trump. There's always the same Donald Trump, who acts in a pretty narrow self- interest, specifically doing things that he thinks will make his base of maybe 30 percent of the public happy or support him. And that's where he is right now.

But, you know, last night overnight on CNN's air, we had several survivors and family members of people who lost loved ones due due to this crisis. And they said the same thing, effectively, that the president's actions and words have been really like a gut punch to them, minimizing effectively, the death of their loved ones.

The president had a golden opportunity to make his entire existence a public health billboard for how to turn this pandemic around. He didn't take it, and he did exactly the opposite.

And to John's point, it's not helping him. Two-thirds of Americans say that he has handled his own health and the health of those around him irresponsibly. And then he comes back to the White House and promptly takes off his mask, doubling down on that perception.

So, no, none of this makes any electoral sense, except if you only look at the 20 to 30 percent of the American public who don't care what the president does and will support him anyway.

BERMAN: All right.

CAMEROTA: I'm also just not sure it's helping him health-wise. I -- in our next block, we can ask Dr. Hotez about what people thought they saw after he took off his mask.

BERMAN: Absolutely. And it's a great point. I mean, so it's hurting public health, hurting politically, and maybe not good for his health either. So stick around, a lot more to discuss.

In addition to the fact there is this new report creating new concerns about politics getting in the way of a vaccine. The safety guidelines from the FDA that the FDA wants before approving the vaccine or any vaccine, the White House has just overruled. So what's going on here? Next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:20]

CAMEROTA: This morning, coronavirus cases across the U.S. getting worse. Cases are rising in 22 states, falling in just four states. More than 210,000 people have died, and doctors are warning about the approaching flu season.

We're back with Abby Phillip, John Harwood and Dr. Peter Hotez.

Dr. Hotez, before we get to where the country is, I just want -- want your thoughts on what people saw last night. When President Trump was on the balcony there, and he took off his mask in that great kind of reveal in what he thought was a show of strength, it may have backfired a little bit because, at least online, people noticed that he seems to be struggling for breath. He's sort of wincing at one point. He's sucking in breath a couple of times, even through his mouth. And, of course, I mean, this is a respiratory illness. It affects people's lungs.

I don't think we've interviewed a single person who has said -- who has had it and said they didn't feel like an elephant was sitting on their chest. He had just gone up the steps. And so -- but you know, I'm not a doctor. What do you see when you watch this video?

HOTEZ: Well, remember, this is an individual who has many of the risk factors for severe illness. Right? His age, 74, the fact that he's male. That turns out to be a risk factor. He's got comorbid conditions, being overweight; possibly other comorbid conditions.

When you add all that up and the fact that he reportedly had fever, shortness of breath, low oxygenation, you are looking at a disease that easily has over 10 percent mortality rate. One in 10 would die, and according to some estimates, could be as high as 1 in 3.

So he is right now going through a life-threatening illness, possibly only saved by the fact that he was able to get monoclonal antibodies, which are virus-neutralizing antibodies. That might have helped his body fight the infection. And the Remdesivir and some of the other measures. If it weren't for that, there's a good possibility he would not be standing.

So he came pretty close to death's door, so for him now to be standing up there in this kind of defiant posture, as though that's what the American people want to see, when the vast majority of Americans are terrified, appropriately so, of this virus that's going to ruin their lives or kill their loved ones is, of course, tone deaf.

But -- but also sends the wrong message, because we still have a long way to go in this epidemic. And remember, we're now entering our third peak, our big fall surge that everyone is predicting. Now we're seeing it in the upper Midwest, in Wisconsin, in the Dakotas and going into the Great Plains states. We're in for a terrible fall, most likely. And for him to take that position when we should be hunkering down and getting ready for that fall surge, again, sends the wrong message. BERMAN: We're going to need, as we head into this period, science.

Science is what we're going to need to lean on to get us through this period, John Harwood.

And "The New York Times" reports this morning that the White House has overruled the FDA. The FDA wanted new guidelines for a vaccine, a emergency-use vaccine approval. That would say they would wait two months from the second dose that patients received as part of the vaccine trials, wait two months from their final dose before emergency-use approval.

The White House says no. No. We can't wait. Probably, it seems, because the White House thinks that that will push it past election day for approval.

But for Mark Meadows, who's got no medical degree at all -- I don't even know if he has a college degree, frankly, John Harwood -- to jump in and say, No, the FDA can't this, what does that tell you?

HARWOOD: It tells me that the president has surrounded himself, at this stage in his presidency, with sycophants who are going to do what he wants, even his doctors.

We saw Dr. Conley over the weekend openly misleading the country about the state of the president's health, acknowledging that he lied about whether the president had had oxygen, because he wanted to convey an upbeat message for Donald Trump's benefit.

The president has -- has bent the federal government into his service, trying to make himself look good, trying to boost his presidential campaign. And there's a tremendous cost to that. We're going to see a lot -- increased amount of alienation toward the prospect of a vaccine, even if one is announced.

But we've seen across the entire federal government, from the Justice Department to the Census Bureau, a range of activities, from the Department of Homeland Security, where the president has put the resources and the personnel of the federal government at his personal service as we get closer to the election.

And his behavior yesterday, last couple of days, was increasingly manic as he got in a car, drove around Walter Reed to wave to people who were waving flags out there, and now staging this theatrical return home at the cost of the example he was setting for the country, as well as the welfare of the people working closest to him, both famous people and not famous people. It's pretty staggering to see.

CAMEROTA: Well, Abby, the president wants to get back to business as usual, obviously back in the White House, so I guess that taxpayers can now hear more about his zero-dollar payments to the IRS over all these years or, at a high, $750. And so I guess that, you know, whatever just happened over the past four days, in his mind, is over; and so reporters can get back to digging and doing their business.

And what do you expect to happen this week as we look forward towards the debate? PHILLIP: I mean, I guess pick your headline. You know, the last year

has really felt like a century and, yes, the president's tax story was less than a week ago.

And -- but it's wishful thinking to think that the president can just come back to the White House, declare, Mission accomplished, walk up the stairs, take off his mask, and make this virus go away. That is not going to be possible.

And here's one big reason why. Every day that goes by, someone in the White House is testing positive for the coronavirus. People in that institution are contracting this virus left and right. The former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, is in the hospital. Kellyanne Conway, the former counselor to the president, has tested positive. The White House press secretary also tested positive.

So the American people are not escaping these headlines. The president is not escaping these headlines. And no matter how often he tells people to just simply confront the virus and get on with your lives, and therapeutics will save you, the American people know that that's not true, because about a thousand people every day are dying.

[06:25:19]

They're also looking forward to the holiday season, to Thanksgiving and to Christmas and other holidays. And they're thinking to themselves, How are we going to get our families together safely without putting people at risk?

And I think people really understand. And for the first time in a very long time in their -- probably in their entire lives, they don't know how to really answer that question. That is not going away just because the president wants to change the headlines.

BERMAN: Dr. Hotez, we've got about 30 seconds left. I do want your take on these FDA recommendations or guidelines that they wanted in place for emergency-use vaccine approval. Apparently now, the White House overruling them. Your take?

HOTEZ: yes. What the White House is doing is -- is unacceptable. The quote that I've been reading is that Meadows, the chief of staff, has said that Stephan Hahn, the FDA commissioner, is being overly influenced by career scientists. Really? Overly influenced?

I've worked with those career scientists for the last 30 years. They are the smartest, toughest group of scientists I've ever worked with, and every time I interact with them I learn something new. They are incredible mentors, incredible -- have this unique ability to really understand the details of axian (ph) scientists. Those are exactly the people that Stephen Hahn should be listening to.

So the FDA is right on this. The White House is absolutely wrong. We need that two-month period, extra period to make certain that these vaccines are safe. Remember, this is a brand-new technology, never been -- that's never been used before, never been licensed. So we need that extra two months, and probably even need more than that, but at least two months.

And they also want to put in some extra level of scrutiny to make certain that this -- these vaccines actually prevent serious infections, which is a very reasonable thing to do. So the FDA is doing absolutely the right thing, and the White House needs to listen to them.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Hotez, thank you very much for all of your expertise. John Harwood, Abby Phillip, thank you both very much.

So election day is four weeks away.

BERMAN: From today.

CAMEROTA: From today. And CNN has a brand-new poll that shows the state of the race. That's next.

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