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Commission on Presidential Debates Announces Next Debate Will be Virtual; President Trump States He Will Not Agree to Virtual Debate; Claims in Vice Presidential Debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Kamala Harris Examined; Second Presidential Debate Will Be Held Virtually; Biden Announces He Will Participate in Virtual Debate. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 08, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think what Kamala Harris had to go out there and do was to hang on to her base, which she did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd be very surprised to see much movement in the polls here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. How did it get to be 8:00 a.m. already?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I know.

CAMEROTA: It's flying.

BERMAN: This show didn't feel like it was seven hours long.

CAMEROTA: We do have breaking news for you because the Commission on Presidential Debates just announced that the second presidential debate scheduled for next Thursday will be held virtually. President Trump and Joe Biden will be in separate remote locations. Now, last night Vice President Pence and Senator Kamala Harris were separated by plexiglass. The vice president was forced to defend the Trump administration's handling of coronavirus after Harris called it, quote, the greatest failure of any presidential administration in history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How would your administration protect Americans with preexisting conditions to have access to affordable insurance if the Affordable Care Act is struck down?

MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Susan, but let me just say addressing your very first question, I couldn't be more proud to serve as vice president to a president who stands without apology for the sanctity of human life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. We're going to hear from both campaigns in just minutes.

BERMAN: Also this morning, the president we know has returned to the Oval Office from isolation in the White House residence despite the fact that he's almost certainly still contagious, shedding the virus wherever he goes. Now CNN has new details about the president's desire to return to the campaign trail with actual rallies being discussed. Where would it be safe to hold a rally right now? Really almost nowhere. Look at that map right there. You can see the orange is all the states where there are cases on the rise, the beige the states where cases are stable.

So joining us now, Scott Jennings, who was special assistant to President George W. Bush and a CNN political commentator, Paul Begala, Democratic strategist, and CNN political commentator and CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins. And I want to start with the breaking news which comes from the Commission on Presidential Debates which says that the next presidential debate which is scheduled for Thursday, if it happens, will be a virtual affair, which is to say that the candidates will be in separate locations with voters in a town hall format asking them questions remotely. This is because the president is, as of now, contagious.

Kaitlan Collins, to you. What do you expect the White House response will be to this? And just mark the moment. I mean, this in and of itself is a statement of where we are, which is it is unsafe to be near the president of the United States.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the medical experts, I believe, will say this is a wise decision. We had heard a lot of back and forth over whether or not that should be held in person in just a week from today. But notably, John, what the statement does not say is that the Trump campaign or the Biden campaign has agreed to it. It's hard to see that the president's advisers are going to be enthusiastic about this because there had been some talk about this beforehand or after -- in the aftermath of that first debate, and it was not something that the president's advisers wanted to see. And they noticeably have not said a word about this since the statement came out from the organizers of the debate, that it is going to be held virtually because, of course, the Trump campaign's argument has been that the president is stronger when he is in person and can respond that way.

So it will be noticeable, because, of course, this not only gives the opportunity for less interruptions on the president's behalf, something that the campaign was publicly enthusiastic about but were concerned about how they were going to navigate that in the second debate with voters present. But also it is going to be in and of itself sending this message that the reason this is going conducted virtually is because the president got COVID-19. It's going to be hard for anyone watching this not to be thinking about that constantly because, of course, that's the reason Joe Biden and Donald Trump will not be in the same room together.

CAMEROTA: It changes the entire face of the debate, obviously. President Trump has just responded to this for the first time. We've not heard it yet, let's hear what he has to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I heard that the commission a little while ago changed the debate style, and that's not acceptable to us. I beat him easily in the first debate according to the polls that I've seen, but I beat him easily, I felt I beat him easily. I think he felt it, too. He wouldn't answer any questions, and he had the protection of Chris Wallace all night long. I thought Chris Wallace was a disaster. But I beat him in the first debate. In the second debate we have a never-Trumper as a host, but that's OK because I'd beat him in the second debate also. But I'm not going to do a virtual debate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. Well, there was the news. Paul Begala, does he have a choice?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. First, let's cut the president a break here. That's just the steroids talking, OK?

[08:05:03]

They have to do this. He is diseased. He is sick. He's infectious. Also, he has COVID. No sense that a person could put a person in a room with Donald Trump. Think about this, Ro Khanna, the Congressman from California, brilliant guy, pointed this out yesterday. The White House, which Scott and I worked at. It's only 1,100 people on 16 acres. More COVID cases at the White House than in the whole country of New Zealand plus Taiwan plus Vietnam, 124 million people. This guy is a super spreader. He is a menace. He's typhoid Donny. Of course he can't be out among people. It's too dangerous. He is a menace to public health.

BERMAN: I have to say, just to remind people of the breaking news, because this is now a thing, the Commission on Presidential Debates has said that if there is going to be a presidential debate next week as scheduled Thursday night, it would have to be virtual with the candidates appearing in remote locations. We just heard the president, Scott Jennings, say no, no, that's not acceptable to me.

It is interesting, because as Kaitlan points out, the imagery of it would be you are in remote locations because the president is a threat to people's health. But to say no, to refuse to debate in this way, which is deemed safe, how risky is that for the president to be seen as dodging this opportunity to engage with Joe Biden?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, a couple things. Number one, if you consider that he didn't win the first debate or that it didn't turn out well for him in the polls, it's not risky at all. Number two, if you also consider that there are very few persuadable voters left out there, it may not matter all that much. Number three, I suspect the optics are secondary and the concern really is, like we're having a conversation right now, if you guys decide you don't like what I'm saying, you can mute my microphone. You could turn me off.

BERMAN: If only.

JENNINGS: And so if you have a virtual conversation, I suspect -- please don't. Don't Thanos me. I suspect what Trump is worried about is just the concept of he wants to try to engage in a -- I will use an industry term -- pod his mic down, and then he won't be able to control it. And so I don't know if they are going to have this debate or not, but I suspect that conversation about who is going to be in control of the microphones is going to be front and center.

INGRAHAM: Gosh, Kaitlan, what a strange moment. What a strange moment where the virtual reality meets surreality. It was already going to be a different kind of debate than what we saw. It was a town hall, so they were going to be able to address voters' concerns. I don't think that President Trump was going to be able to interrupt or steamroll voters in the way that he had done in the first debate, but now, just the -- imagine it. We have all been on these Zoom calls where the audio doesn't work, the signal goes out, it freezes. This is what might be happening a week from now.

COLLINS: And I honestly don't think it would be that bad of a backdrop for the president to be somewhere in the White House doing this debate with a more presidential backdrop for voters to look at. I think it could actually work well, but the president is clearly opposed to this. he says he is not going to be doing a virtual debate, so that is huge. We may not see these candidates do a debate next week as they are scheduled.

But if you want to see how the president is viewing this, he also just said in these comments that he felt like he could do a rally tonight. He says he wanted to do a rally last night, which of course, was during the vice presidential debate. But that is how the president is viewing his diagnosis with COVID. It's not even been one week since the president announced he had COVID-19 and had tested positive. Of course, this was the fateful day last week when Hope Hicks learned she was positive. The president still went to that fundraiser. Anyway, and now he is saying that he feels like he could do a rally tonight.

That gives you an indication of how we were talking about the Trump campaign wants to see the president back on the road around that debate next week, that was something they were already talking about. And the president is making clear he not only wanted to get back in the Oval Office, get back to the White House, he also wants to get back on the campaign trail and return to holding these rallies despite the condemnation that he's faced since he got COVID. And of course, we've seen the trail of events since then.

But it is big news, the president is saying he is backing out of doing a debate if it's going to be held virtually, which I don't think the Commission on Presidential Debates is going to back off of. BERMAN: Yes, I would be surprised if they backed off after making

this statement. And, again, the news this morning isn't just that the commission says they want to do it virtually. It's that the president says, no, it's not going to happen, he is not going to show up. He won't do it.

And the politics of that are fascinating, Paul. Scott Jennings does raise an interesting point, which is maybe the president is better off not debating. However, if you are down, you have to do something to change it up. Didn't you guys send a guy in a chicken suit around hounding people in 1992? When you avoid or choose not to debate, usually it ends up being a thing that comes back to haunt you.

BEGALA: And a lot of Trump's appeal to his base is that he poses as a strongman, and a strongman shouldn't run away from a fight. I think Scott and Kaitlan make great points, better than my points, that is every politician has their strengths and weaknesses.

[08:10:03]

Trump's strength is his rallies. He shouldn't do one because it's a menace to public health. Joe's strength is those personal, intimate connections one-on-one with voters. That's what a town hall does. When you lose that -- it's actually Joe Biden who loses more in this format because he is the empathetic guy. He's the one who actually feels your pain and can engage with you. Trump is terrible at that. He's not empathetic at all. So actually this shift is a big win for Trump, he can clothe himself in the grandeur of the White House, as Kaitlan points out, and he doesn't have to look at what he called disgusting people. That's what he called his own supporters according to Olivia Troye who worked for the vice president on the task force for coronavirus.

So actually if he could take a breath, chill, he would see this is actually a big win for him, and it takes away Biden's greatest strength, which is his ability to relate to people in a personal setting.

CAMEROTA: I wouldn't say just because President Trump said something at 8:00 a.m. eastern time on a Thursday that we should take that to the bank for what's going to happen a week from now.

BERMAN: Do you think he will cave? Do you think he will show up after saying that he won't do it?

CAMEROTA: I think the president often says two things that are contradictory so he can never be wrong. I think we know that from his style. So he might say something completely different in his next interview. We just don't know. But that was his -- we do have his first response, his first blush response was, no, I'm not going to do that. But we will see after he talks to his advisers and it marinates. I can see it's marinating with you, John Berman.

BERMAN: We'll see. We'll see. I just don't think it will happen. Scott Jennings, Kaitlan Collins, Paul Begala, thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all.

OK, it is time to fact check the candidates. Last hour we discussed Vice President Mike Pence. Now we take a closer look at Senator Kamala Harris's claims, and John Avlon has our reality check. Hi again, John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, guys. OK, so last night's V.P. debate was kind of a game of dodge ball, a lot of quick pivots, hits and misses. The economy is still issue number one in the election, and here was Kamala Harris's attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D-CA) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Because of a so-called trade war with China America lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs. We are in a manufacturing recession.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: The relationship status on this one is complicated. Under President Trump we saw an initial gain of 483,000 manufacturing jobs. But manufacturing was in a recession back in January after trade war losses and before COVID. Since then we've seen the bottom fall out, giving Trump a net loss of 164,000 manufacturing jobs today.

Now, Pence pressed Harris on whether a Biden administration would try to pack the Supreme Court, and she, like Biden in the last debate, wouldn't answer. That's probably because they want to leave the option open. Regardless, it's a question for Congress rather than the president, but it's an open question.

And then there's this hit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: They would impose the green new deal. They want to abolish fossil fuels and ban fracking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Biden does have a $1.7 trillion climate change proposal that calls for net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but it's not the same as the Green New Deal which he opposes. His plan has no federal jobs guarantees or single-payer health care, for example. And likewise Biden does not support a ban on fracking. But Kamala Harris did back a fracking ban on public lands when she was running for Senate.

Pence tried to deflect from his administration's record on COVID with a bit of what-aboutism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: We actually do know what failure looks like in a pandemic. It was 2009, the swine flu arrived in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP) AVLON: OK, if that's got you scratching your head, it's because there were about 60 million swine flu cases in Obama's first year, but there were just under 12,500 deaths. I compared that to more than 211,000 in the current COVID crisis. It's just not the same thing.

But perhaps the biggest whopper of the night occurred in this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D-CA) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's talk about respecting the American people. You respect the American people when you tell them the truth. You respect the American people when you have the courage --

MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Which we've always done.

HARRIS: -- to be a leader.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: We've always done. All right, there are about 20,000 reasons to call B.S. on that claim. If only there was a quote to sum up the problem with this spin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: You're entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: And that's your reality check.

CAMEROTA: John, thank you very much for bringing us all of that. I know you had a late night.

OK, Pete Buttigieg played the part of Mike Pence during Senator Harris's debate prep. Did he get it right? Mayor Pete joins us live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:06]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking news, the Biden campaign says the former vice president will participate in a virtual debate.

Again, the Presidential Debate Commission just announced that if a debate is to happen next Thursday night as scheduled, it will be virtual, remote. Both candidates in separate remote locations. Why? Because the president has coronavirus and at least as of now, we expect is still contagious.

So, the Biden campaign says that the vice president would do it, but President Trump just moments ago said no. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via telephone): I heard that the commission a little while ago changed the debate style and that's not acceptable to us.

MARIA BARTIROMO, FBN ANCHOR: You're not going to participate?

TRUMP: No, I'm not going to waste my time on a virtual debate. That's not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate, it's ridiculous. And then they cut you off whenever they want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Again, that was the statement from the president, the Biden campaign, their statement reads, Vice President Biden looks forward to speaking directly to the American people and comparing his plan for bringing the country together and building back better with Donald Trump's failed leadership on the coronavirus that has thrown the strong economy he inherited into the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Again, the Biden campaign says that Biden will or would do the virtual debate.

Joining me now is former Democratic presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg. He stood in for Vice President Pence during the debate prep for Senator Kamala Harris.

Mayor, thank you very much for being with us.

A whole lot of breaking news just happened in the last five minutes. Can I get your reaction? It's a big deal when a president backs out of a scheduled debate. Now, I know the format has changed, but it's still a big deal. What's your take?

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, you know, the first debate went poorly for the president and maybe it's a sign of waving the white flag, maybe it's posturing because, you know, they can create a little bit more noise around this.

[08:20:05]

You know, I think the bottom line is what we're seeing again and again is that whenever there's a choice between doing something in a more safe way when it comes to COVID or a less safe way, whether we're talking about debating or whether we are talking about wearing masks, whether it's the president or whether it's the American people, they always seem to lean toward whatever is less responsible and less safe, and that's one of the reasons why we have a less effective response than any other country in the developed world.

You know, I think we've shown and certainly the Biden/Harris campaign has been remarkably adept at using virtual means to continue campaigning, and mix that in with safe in-person campaigning, and they're going to continue to do that because this is 2020. You've got to adapt. You've got to roll with the punches. You can't

just say it's got to be done the old way forever. The world is changing.

BERMAN: I will also note that you and I are speaking right now from remote locations and this is the way that the debate presumably would take place.

Now, we're not talking about Zoom here. We are talking -- you know, we're not talking about tin cans and yarn. We're talking about probably technology that would allow it to take place in a much more advanced way.

The debate last night, you stood in. You played Mike Pence in the debate prep with Senator Kamala Harris, which means you had to get into his mind, learn everything about his record, and be him for all intents and purposes, which, you know, you have some experience because you were a mayor in a city and a state in Indiana when he was governor.

What surprised you most -- with everything you know about Mike Pence, what surprised you most about his performance last night?

BUTTIGIEG: You know, very little, actually. You know, we were prepared for him to say things that aren't true and do it with a straight face and very slowly and calmly. And part of what I viewed as my job was to help Senator Harris see how that would happen and prepare for that.

The only thing that really surprised me was how disrespectful he was towards the rules and toward the moderator. But other than that, you know, it was the same talking points, the same lines, the same evasions that we've been seeing from the Trump-Pence campaign throughout because they clearly did not want to answer for this administration's failed response to the pandemic, for the economic disaster happening all around us.

And I think the longer the night went on with him in this impossible position of trying to make it sounds like everything is going along great, the better it went for our campaign, especially with Senator Harris who is so effective in holding this administration accountable.

And, by the way, you know, doing it carrying the weight of history and it was, I think, really impressive also and a historic moment as the first black woman for her to be -- for her to really triumph on the debate stage.

BERMAN: So, when you were running for president, one of the things that I remember jumping out to me was the way that you talked about the Supreme Court and the filibuster. You were, I think, in my memory is the first candidate who I heard talking about it at length. You brought up the idea of ending the filibuster.

You said you might be supportive of ending the filibuster in the Senate. You brought up, you raised the possibility of different kinds of Supreme Court reform, but one of them would be to add to the number of justices on the court. This is something that you indicated that you might be supportive of.

This is a question that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the Biden campaign writ large refuse to answer right now. So, let's listen to that moment last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And I've witnessed the appointments, for lifetime appointments to the federal courts, district courts, courts of appeal. People who are purely ideological and do you know that of the 50 people who President Trump appointed to the Court of Appeals for lifetime appointments, not one is black. This is what they've been doing.

Do you want to talk about packing a court? Let's have that discussion.

SUSAN PAGE, DEBATE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Let's go on and talk about the issue of racial justice.

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So you will note she did not answer the question, and Joe Biden has not answered the question. What she said may be true on other fronts, it is true on other fronts, but it's not an answer to the question of, do you support adding to the number of justices on the Supreme Court?

So, Mayor, don't people who supported you in the primary, maybe because of that issue, deserve an answer on that question? Why don't they deserve an answer on that question?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, speaking for myself, I have always been and remain very interested in bipartisan opportunities for reform, but we're also not going to get it thrown. It's very clear that there is an effort by the Trump/Pence campaign to distract from a much more immediate, much more here and now, in-our-face issue when it comes to the Supreme Court, which is that they're trying to ram through a justice, disagreeing with the vast majority of the American people who think that the winner of this election ought to choose the next justice.

And this is not a theoretical exercise or something that comes down to arcane points of legal academia, this is about our lives. You know, we just saw two members of the Supreme Court the other day write language that basically calls for overturning marriage equality, just five years after marriage equality became the law of the land. The Affordable Care Act is coming before the court.

[08:25:03]

If Republicans win that case, and this is in a matter of weeks, then preexisting condition coverage and many other needed elements of health insurance could be stripped away from millions of Americans. And it's very important to keep our eye on that and keep the focus on that with so much on the line and with this really remaining a central issue in the presidential election that, by the way, isn't just coming up, it's under way, more than 5 million people have already cast their vote.

BERMAN: And you're right, and Mike Pence did refuse to answer a question on how the Trump administration would project preexisting conditions.

But on the idea that it's an academic exercise, it isn't really an academic exercise, is it, because if Joe Biden wins, he'll be the president. And he would be the one who would have to sign a law that changes the number of judges on a court if Congress were to pass that law.

So, would you be supportive of it? Forget your role in the Biden/Harris campaign, would you be supportive to adding to the number of justices on the court?

BUTTIGIEG: Yeah, my position hasn't changed. I'm a big believer in exploring bipartisan reforms, especially if we can get out of this cycle where every time there is a vacancy, there is a big ideological death match in the Senate. But again, we've got something much more immediate, much more pressing on our hands and that is a decision that could be made in a matter of days that's going to affect all of us very intimately in our personal lives.

BERMAN: November 10th, the Supreme Court hears the case on the Affordable Care Act. There is no question about that.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, it's nice to see you again. Thanks so much for coming on NEW DAY. Appreciate it.

BUTTIGIEG: Same here. Great to be with you.

BERMAN: All right. President Trump announced moments ago that he will skip next week's presidential debate now that the decision has been made because he has coronavirus to hold it virtually. The vice president's chief of staff joins us next live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)