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Trump Ends Stimulus Talks; Pence and Harris Debate; Truth about Voter Fraud; Coronavirus Changes Trump. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 07, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Bigger deal, Scott.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, they want a deal that can't pass the Congress. They want a deal that cannot pass the Congress. What kind of a deal is that? For people who need help, it means nothing.

CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Bakari.

Go ahead, Bakari.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That was -- I wasn't expecting that spin, per se. I think that the president of the United States would do good by hiring Scott Jennings because I think that the president of the United States is awful at politics.

I think yesterday was an awful move and it was a bad political move. It was bad for the economy. And even more importantly, it was bad for every day Americans who are struggling to make ends meet while we're going through this pandemic.

The fact is that Democrats, particularly House Democrats, I think there is a $600 billion Delta between the two parties. I mean we can meet in the middle. The president needs to be able to bring people in his office and get this going and move forward. That's what Joe Biden is telling the American public, look, I'm going to sit down with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell. We're going to sit in the same room. We're going to hammer it out because that's what's necessary for the good of the American people.

Donald Trump is saying, I'm going to pick up my ball and go home. And, purely speaking politically, it was an awful move because now the only person who gets blamed, regardless of Scott Jennings use of the Google this morning, the only person who's going to get blamed is Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: Do you think this falls on President Trump's shoulders, number one, Scott, and, number two, isn't President Trump supposed to be -- you know, didn't he bill himself as this negotiator extraordinaire? And so it would -- if she wants $2.4 trillion, they're offering $1.6 trillion. Is that when you walk away? JENNINGS: Well, look, yes, I mean, the correct political move would be

to just keep talking until I guess you're blue in the face and Election Day comes and goes. What Trump came to the realization of yesterday is, is that Pelosi was never going to get to a place where they could sign off on a deal.

By the way, what they want, there are things in their package that have nothing to do with coronavirus, including cutting taxes for the wealthiest people in San Francisco and New York City. They want to do the SALT deduction thing. That is the main hang-up. And I get it, she's representing her constituents and her donors. I understand. That cannot pass the Senate. We have divided government. If you want relief, you have to compromise. She has told us on numerous occasions there will be no compromise.

So, yes, I would love it if Donald Trump would keep talking, but that's not going to change what she has said numerous times on the record. It is heartbreaking for people who have lost their jobs and need help, but that's where we are and that's the choice we have in America. Are we going to go this all or nothing, my way or the highway Pelosi --

CAMEROTA: OK.

JENNINGS: Or are you going to want some compromise. And I would suggest maybe compromise is what they should do.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about what we're going to see tonight on the debate stage.

Bakari, what do you want to see? What do you expect?

SELLERS: Well, I think that people have this very weird expectation that Kamala Harris is going to come out and, you know, eviscerate it and go for the jugular against Mike Pence, when I think that people need to understand that the word tonight that I expect to see is Kamala Harris being magnanimous. I think she's going to come out and be presidential.

Mike Pence is having to show up to tonight's debate as chair of the Coronavirus Task Force, over 200,000 Americans are dead on his watch, an economy in a pandemic, as we know, is touching every aspect of our lives. He's going to have to figure out how to wiggle his way and create some space between him and Donald Trump and I just don't see that being possible.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Bakari, I mean -- sorry to interrupt, but you say that you -- everybody has this very weird impression that Kamala Harris will go for the jugular. That's because we saw her do that with Joe Biden. What makes you think that she's going to -- that she's going to use kid gloves tonight?

SELLERS: Oh, I didn't say she's going to use kid gloves, I just said the strategy is going to be vastly different.

Now, if she gets hit, she's going to hit back. She's a very skilled prosecutor. We know she's a -- a very skilled person to prosecute the case. But all I'm telling you is tonight expect her -- when you come away from this debate, Alisyn, I think most people are going to say oh my -- it won't be, oh, my God, she just landed a great punch. It's going to be, oh, my God, she could be president of the United States. That is the difference and that's the clear distinction I'm trying to make.

CAMEROTA: Scott, we got a little bit of a preview from Kate Bedingfield, who was on our program earlier, and it's what Bakari is talking about, that Kamala Harris will lean into the idea that Vice President Pence is the head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and now there is a White House coronavirus outbreak. What's the response to that tonight?

JENNINGS: Oh, sorry, I thought -- I thought we were going to listen to some sound. My apologies.

CAMEROTA: Oh, sorry.

JENNINGS: Yes, I think that's the question. There is going to be -- there is going to be -- you have to forgive me, I'm sitting in a tiny box here in Louisville. I don't -- I don't see everything.

Yes, the number one issue in this race is coronavirus. There's no way around that now for the Trump/Pence ticket. You know, Trump has it. The staff has it. I mean it is the number one issue in the race. I would expect Harris to full on go on attack on that. I mean it's the correct, strategic move for the Biden campaign. Pence is going to have to effectively fight that off.

Where Pence has to, I think, pivot this conversation, he's got to do what Donald Trump failed to do at the last debate, which is to attack on issues and then let the Biden ticket continue to wrap itself around the axel.

[08:35:02]

In the conversation with Kate that you mentioned, she wouldn't answer John Berman's questions about court packing and about the filibuster. She blamed it on Republicans. Well, I've heard Bakari on this very show bring up those issues. Pence has got to prosecute that case. He's got to pin them down on issues because they won't answer it. And that's where the Trump ticket and the Pence ticket is going to try to say, look, Joe Biden won't tell you what they want to do because they've got all these radical ideas and they know if they tell you it's going to be bad for their campaign. So Pence has got to do that. What Trump didn't do was let it breathe. He never let Biden wrap himself up. That's where Pence, I think, should be a little calmer, back off and let the strategy breathe tonight when he prosecutes that case.

CAMEROTA: Scott, that was an excellent demonstration of how to pivot to a different topic, but check -- but just because you've agreed that coronavirus will be front and center, how is Vice President Pence going to explain that on his watch, as the head of the task force, they failed? The White House is now itself a hot spot. How is he going to explain that?

JENNINGS: Yes, I mean, I think he's probably going to say this virus can strike anyone. That we're doing the best we can. That we've operated on the best information that we have and that we're moving as fast as we can on a vaccine. I mean there's not a lot you can do.

The news is the news. And sometimes all you can do is sort of touch it and then pivot away as fast -- and if you're just putting on my debate coach hat, sometimes there's topics, all you can do is touch it and then move and try to get to firmer ground. And I would expect Pence to try to move to talk about the future, who can best recover the economy, who can best move us back to regular life as soon as possible. That's the firmest and safest thing for him to do tonight. To litigate the past I don't think is a good political tactic. So I would expect pivot to the future all night long from Pence.

CAMEROTA: Bakari, ten seconds, final thoughts.

SELLERS: No, tonight's going to be a fun night. Tonight is going to be something that we didn't see last week at all. Mike Pence is a very, very, very skilled debater. For those individuals who think that he's not, all they need to do is go back four years and watch it. We know this administration is not tethered to the truth, so expect some wild accusations coming out of both sides of his neck. But I believe Kamala Harris will be able to bob and weave and we'll be here trying to figure out who won tomorrow morning.

CAMEROTA: Early tomorrow morning. We look forward to it.

Bakari Sellers, Scott Jennings, thank you both very much.

JENNINGS: Thank you.

SELLERS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: CNN's special coverage of the vice presidential debate begins at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

CAMEROTA: President Trump's most frequent, false claims in the run-up to the election are his claims of voter fraud. This conspiracy theory goes deeper than those tweets and luckily a "Reality Check" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:41:37]

BERMAN: So as of this morning, millions of people have already voted in the U.S. election. No evidence of widespread voter fraud. That should be the headline, there is no evidence this morning of widespread voter fraud by mail or in-person. That's the most important thing to remember.

But there are people in power trying to convince you otherwise.

John Avlon here with a "Reality Check."

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, guys.

Look, four weeks from today the election will be over, but the counting will still be going on. And that's where the trouble could come in.

Now, we all know that Donald Trump's been railing against mail-in voting, arguing contrary to all the facts that it will lead to massive fraud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now mail ballots, they cheat, OK?

This is going to be a fraud like you've never seen.

It means fraud. It means a lot of things that we won't get into.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: But Trump has also been warning his supporters that there will be fraud at polling places.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I am urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully.

Watch it. Be poll watchers when you go there. Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do.

Get out there and vote. And keep your eyes open if you see any shenanigans, which you probably will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: This is, of course, a catch-22 because Trump is saying there will be fraud by mail-in votes and in person. So perhaps it's simply a discomfort with democracy.

And we saw this back in 2016 when Trump preemptively claimed a rigged system while systematically trying to deter millions of black Americans from voting according to an investigation by U.K.'s Channel Four News. And, get this, there have be more than 300 election-related lawsuits and appeals filed this year, making this the most litigated election ever already.

Now, the suits cover everything from voter roll purges to voter ID laws, to absentee ballots and consolidating polling places. In the end it's a fight over whether it should be easier for folks to vote.

Now, occasionally, Republican efforts run into a buzz saw, like when a federal judge in Montana rejected the Trump campaign's effort to stop an expansion of mail-in voting, calling their claims fiction, adding they cannot point to a single instance of voter fraud in Montana in any election during the last 20 years. But often their efforts get an assist. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott

closed ballot drop off sites throughout the state leaving just one per county, even in massive cities like Houston. And the Supreme Court helped the GOP restrict vote by mail in South Carolina by requiring witness signatures.

Now, remember, projection is Trump's favorite political weapon. And the biggest fraud being perpetrated here is the one that says widespread election fraud actually exists. If you don't believe me, just listen to GOP's longtime election guru Ben Ginsburg. Quote, the truth is that after decades of looking for illegal voting, there's no proof of widespread fraud.

Another lawyer who represented Bush in the 2000 Florida recount agrees, you're really seeing a broad-based, generalized strategy to suppress the vote by the Republican Party, he said.

Now, here's another way to know it's bogus. When there actually was a recent case of election fraud that could have changed the results of a race, Trump didn't say boo about it. Perhaps because it was a Republican political operative in North Carolina who was charged with it.

Speaking of North Carolina, that's where Trump recently told his supporters to try to vote twice, which is illegal. It's also where a Trump campaign operative emailed local party officials and advised them to, quote, not follow the procedures.

[08:45:04]

This isn't law and order, it's about partisanship and power and the fear that a free and open count won't go their way. But here's the thing, early voting's already underway in more than 30 states, with some 3 million votes already cast. It's your vote and your voice and don't let anyone take it away.

And that's your "Reality Check."

BERMAN: You know, it's not "Law and Order," John, it's "House of Cards."

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: I mean I think if you're going to put a -- put a TV show on it, that's the one to look at.

AVLON: Yes, there's an episode in season five that might be kind of on the nose.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Thank you for all of that reality, John, we really appreciate it.

All right, President Trump says he's learned a lot about coronavirus since he got sick. OK, so tell us, what did you learn, Mr. President? Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: So, you know, we've not seen President Trump in the last 24 hours as he deals with coronavirus.

[08:50:03]

We have heard from him, in a sense, Twitter outrage on a variety of subjects, including canceling economic relief negotiations unilaterally.

We're joined now by CNN contributor and Donald Trump biography Michael D'Antonio.

Michael, thanks so much for being with us.

I have a lot I want to discuss with you. I actually want to start with the news on the economic walk away as it were because you may have some insight on this. People saw the president just pick up his marbles and leave these economic negotiations, noting it will hurt millions of people, thinking this is a really -- not only is it a bad move for the American people, it's a really bad political move as well and people were asking why, why would he do this? Well, you've studied Donald Trump and you've written about him and, among other things, you write that you detect an unruliness at times that veers towards self- destruction. Explain what that means.

MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, John, this is something that has characterized Donald Trump throughout his life. He's always been a person who refuses to adhere to the reality that everyone else occupies. So if it's raining outside and he's a little boy, he's going to run out without a coat and an umbrella. And if he's president of the United States and the best thing for him to do would be for him to help the American people through this pandemic recession, he's going to march away from the talks that would produce that result mainly to prove that he can. He wants everyone to think that the rules don't apply to him and that means the rules of normal politics.

And, to a degree, this has always worked for him. You know, he wants you to think that he's a renegade, that he knows something that you don't know. Everything always leads to him prevailing. And so it's his instinct to do this, even if it's self-destructive. And he has self- destructed before. When people have tried to warn him away from a certain direction, he can't help himself.

BERMAN: Part of this has to do with his perception, perhaps, of strength. When I say his perception of strength, it's because of what he thinks of it, not necessarily what society think of it. And this is something that his niece, Mary Trump, has discussed.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY TRUMP, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S NIECE: In some respects it's as if he doesn't exactly have a choice. This is entirely my grandfather's doing because, in my family, you were not allowed to display weakness and being sick was considered weakness. By the same token, he subscribed to the doctrine of the power of positive thinking, so you could never admit that there was anything wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: This has to do also with the desire to get out of Walter Reed as quickly as possible, his desire to be seen on the White House balcony, the desire to whip the mask off in front of the American people. You've got your own reporting and feelings about this, Michael, correct?

D'ANTONIO: I do.

Well, you know, Mary is right about all of that. She described Fred Trump as a sociopath. And some child who's raised by a sociopath is going to grow up with a very twisted and bizarre view of how the world works.

I often think of the president's brain as like one of those puzzles in a kid's puzzle book where there's only one way that the maze leads you and it's always to the same place. And in Donald Trump's brain he can be sick, 210,000 people can have died, but when he follows the maze, he winds up in this place where he's the hero, he's the king, he's like Mussolini standing on the balcony gasping for air but saluting.

You know, this is -- it becomes ridiculous but also dangerous. And this is, I think, something that Mary also has touched on, that there is a point where this kind of delusion is lethal and there's now ample proof that we have reached the point of lethality with the pandemic and, God, I hope that no one in the White House succumbs to coronavirus, but that's proof that he is really not even sensitive to the people around him, to his closest helpers. If they get sick and suffer, it really doesn't matter.

BERMAN: I will say, we have a question up on the screen, will coronavirus change Donald Trump? I think the answer to that question as you have just said is, yes, you just have to shake your head no, no, it won't.

So let's move to something that's a little bit more up in the air. We have about 30 seconds left.

I don't know what's going to happen in the election. I don't know whether the polls are accurate or not. But how would he process a loss based on what you've seen historically from him?

[08:55:04]

D'ANTONIO: Oh, it's going to be terrible. If it's clear that he's lost, he will raise every objection imaginable. He'll fight accepting the defeat. And I think he won't declare defeat. He won't call his opponent and wish him well. He'll rally his folks and try to get people into the streets.

The period between now and the election is going to be bad. If he loses, the period after the election will be worse. BERMAN: Michael D'Antonio, let's hope you're wrong, but I appreciate

you being with us this morning.

D'ANTONIO: I hope so, too.

BERMAN: I'm glad you're with us this morning, Michael. Thank you very much.

So the White House itself is a coronavirus hot spot with an outbreak that appears to be growing. Capitol Hill is trying to figure out what the president actually wants to do about economic stimulus. The president might not know what he wants to do about economic stimulus.

Our coverage continues right after this.

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