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Trump Plans to Hold Rally Tomorrow, Won't Say if He was Tested This Week; Trump Allegedly Urge FDA to Quickly Clear Regeneron Antibody Treatment; Louisiana Braces for Fourth Hurricane of the Year; Thirteen Charged in Domestic Terror Plot to Kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 09, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:23]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. It is Friday and there is a whole lot of news. We're glad you're here. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto. We're going to keep you on top of all the news. Here's what we're following this morning.

There is a hurricane approaching the coast. There is the latest on the national health crisis. Real questions about how transparent the White House is being about the president's health and a domestic terrorism plot targeting a sitting governor.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: We're covering all these headlines this morning. First up, Hurricane Delta is gaining strength. It is now a category 3 storm heading towards the Gulf Coast. It is expected to make landfall tonight.

Louisiana, no stranger to storms, is bracing for a life-threatening storm surge. We're going to take you there live.

Also, today coronavirus cases are rising in most states across the country and some of them very fast, spiking in 41 states. Just remarkable at this stage.

Today, we don't know if the president is still testing positive or not or, in fact, how and how often he's been tested. What we do know he wants to start going out in public again, holding big rallies as soon as tomorrow.

HARLOW: No answer on this either. What is the plan from the next presidential debate or debates, and what now for the millions of Americans struggling and out of work in this pandemic as leaders in Washington keep bickering and failing to pass any stimulus aid at all?

And then there's this, as Jim mentioned, 13 people now charged with a domestic terror plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The details are scary, they are stunning and another example of the political tension roiling this country. We're going to talk to Michigan's lieutenant governor ahead.

There is a lot to get to this morning. Let's begin at the White House. Our John Harwood is there with more this morning. John, on what the president is saying about holding rallies starting tomorrow?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's what he's saying. We don't know that that's going to happen for sure. Remember, Poppy, we have not seen the president directly in front of a camera since Monday when he returned from Walter Reed. We have not been able to question his doctors. They've put out vague statements which they prefaced by saying this is what President Trump has authorized us to release.

So we don't really know the state of his health. They still haven't said when the last negative test the president has was which would indicate how deep into the course of illness he is which in turn would provide a clue as to whether or not he's still infectious.

But he's trying to make the argument now that he is well enough to go have rallies beginning this weekend and using that as an argument to say the Commission on Presidential Debates ought to scrap their idea of a virtual debate for next Tuesday which he previously pulled out of and instead -- next Thursday, rather -- and instead substitute an in- person debate.

Joe Biden has already said we're moving on, so it's not clear whether this goes anywhere and the president is far behind and he's clearly just trying stuff day by day, reversing himself on whether or not he's going to negotiate a new stimulus package with Nancy Pelosi. It's a confusing situation and as you guys indicated in the intro transparency is not what we're getting.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And multiple reversals on those issues, stimulus, the debate, sometimes within hours of each other.

John Harwood, thanks very much.

Also this morning, sources are telling the "Washington Post" that President Trump called the head of the FDA to speed up an emergency clearance process for a drug therapy, still experimental that he himself received.

HARLOW: With us now is Dr. Michael Saag, director of Infectious Diseases Division at the University of Alabama Birmingham.

Good morning, Doctor. It's good to have you. We were very interested in the opinion piece you wrote this week and we'll get to that in a moment, but first just responding to what the "Washington Post" is reporting here in terms of any sort of political call to expedite things. What are the medical health implications of that?

DR. MICHAEL SAAG, DIRECTOR, INFECTIOUS DISEASES DIVISION, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA BIRMINGHAM: Well, the FDA works in a way that works for all of us and I don't recall a president ever communicating directly with the head of the FDA to tell them how and when to approve medications or vaccines. So it's a little bit problematic.

The drug that he got, the Regeneron antibodies, those drugs seem to work but they've only been tested so far to my knowledge in a little bit less than 250 people and that's a little bit quick. We need to know the safety, the efficacy and what dose we're supposed to use of this. So we need to test it, I think, in a few more people and let the FDA do their job. They're experts there. They should be able to figure this out on their own.

[09:05:06]

SCIUTTO: Doctor, as you're aware, the president wants to return to large public rallies as soon as tomorrow. Let's set aside the president just for a moment and imagine that Poppy or I came to you and we had tested positive for this and showed symptoms, had been hospitalized for COVID in the last several days and we were a little more than a week out from that positive test. Would you tell us to go to a large public gathering under those circumstances?

SAAG: Absolutely not. I do this every day. I counsel patients in our outpatient COVID clinic and here is the rules. You go 10 days from the onset of symptoms and you stay in isolation. You do not go out. You stay at home with a mask on.

You separate from your family. Then after 10 days if you've had mild illness then you're no longer viewed to be contagious. If you're really sick and in the hospital for a long time, it might go out to 20 days, but at least 10 days.

So it's hard to know exactly when the president's symptoms started. I'm assuming Thursday. So Saturday won't be even 10 days. So he's really pushing this and I think he's putting people at risk if he goes out any time before Sunday.

HARLOW: Well, he was really sick and he was in the hospital so the 20 days may apply here, Doctor. I mean, you know, that's notable.

Let me ask you this because we brought up your op-ed and it was so telling and you had COVID, you treat patients with COVID, and you wrote, quote, "I would expect the president to struggle this week with waxing and waning symptoms of COVID-19, shortness of breath, moments of fuzzy thinking and profound episodes of fatigue. The fatigue is particularly vexing. I wouldn't be surprised if it persisted until election day."

Again, as Jim rightly did, even if you take the president out of this, for any patient of his age, of his symptoms that we know of, how would this affect his ability to live his life, not to mention lead -- you know, be the leader of the free world?

SAAG: Yes. We said at the top of the hour that we don't know much about his illness to be frank. We know that he was sick enough to go to the hospital, we know he got three different medications, one of which he is still on, the dexamethasone. We don't have a clue of how he's feeling right now. I can tell you from taking care of a lot of patients and having it myself, if somebody was sick enough to go to the hospital, their illness lasts for many days after they come back home, and the fatigue is profound.

In my case it went on for three to four weeks. It's just tough to get out of bed. Sometimes I felt great and then, boom, there would be this wave of fatigue and I just had to lay down. And my thinking was altered certainly while I was ill with this for the first 10 days to 14 days.

So it's variable in every person. I can't tell you what the president is going through because I haven't examined him or talked to him, but I can tell you if one of you guys and like all the patients that I see, I get phone calls from patients at home, I don't feel well, what should I do, and frankly there is not a whole lot we can do except wait it out from a medical perspective.

HARLOW: Yes. Well, we are grateful to you for being here and for treating all of these patients as you continue to do.

Dr. Michael Saag, thanks a lot.

SAAG: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: Well, joining us now to discuss is Susan Page. She's Washington bureau chief for "USA Today" and moderator of Wednesday's vice presidential debate.

Susan, good to have you on this morning.

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, USA TODAY: Hey, Jim. Great to be with you.

SCIUTTO: All right. So yesterday the Trump campaign sent out three different statements regarding the next debate after the commission's announcement on going virtual. The commission of course works by agreement by both parties, both participants. Where does the next debate stand right now?

PAGE: Jim, this has really been a case of political malpractice on the part of President Trump. He has undermined the debate that he needs to have to disrupt the trajectory of this campaign. I think it is now unlikely that this debate will take place and I think it is likely to be blamed, that fact, on President Trump. He gave Joe Biden an opening to avoid a forum that Joe Biden doesn't need to have. President Trump does.

SCIUTTO: We've now had two debates, of course, one presidential one, vice presidential/ You moderated the vice presidential debate and in both we saw candidates flouting the rules, which were agreed upon by both parties in advance, rules such as a simple one which, you know, our moms also taught us, don't interrupt. Do you believe there are fixes that can be put in that would be followed to prevent that from happening in another debate?

PAGE: You know, I think we're struggling with that question. I'm trying to have a debate that is informative for Americans. Now in some ways even the disruptive presidential debate that we saw Chris Wallace moderate was valuable to voters. [09:10:01]

It gave them some sign about what -- how to assess the two candidates, but I think that -- I think it's been tough. I think it's been tough with a disruptive president at the first one and with the vice president ignoring my efforts to get him to stop talking when his time was up.

SCIUTTO: Listen, we're all journalists, we've all interviewed folks who just plowed through or lie or mislead, and it's a struggle at times to figure out when and how often to fact check, to interrupt, et cetera. Do you believe that moderators hold the responsibility for enforcing the rules? I mean, is the onus on moderators? Wallace in the first one, Susan Page in the second and looking forward to the next debates if they happen?

PAGE: You know, Jim, I really tried to think through what the role of the moderator was in this debate before last night. And it's different from doing an interview or being at a news conference. Because I think the point of the moderator is to enforce the rules but it's not to fact check. It's not -- we're trying to foster a debate between the two candidates in the best way we can. So it's a little different.

It's -- you know, it's an imperfect system. I think different people would -- you would have handled it probably in a different way than I did, but the standard for me was let's focus on issues that matter to voters and the topics or -- the topics or the questions were up to me, although sometimes the answers were on other topics than the topic I had asked about, and can we give voters some information on which to make a decision in this important election.

SCIUTTO: Understood. And by the way, I'm not saying I could have done any better. Right? I mean, you were in challenging circumstances there.

Big picture, this has sparked another public debate about the usefulness of these debates in this cycle and in future cycles. Do you believe debates are still useful for the American people, for voters, under the current circumstances as they make their choice in this election?

PAGE: Absolutely. In what other form do you have the two candidates standing next to each other talking to Americans about their campaign, their vision for the future, about what they would do. I think it is -- maybe there are fixes, maybe there are alterations but I think these are crucial. How would our democracy be served if we didn't have these debates like totally on TV ads and forms under their control?

SCIUTTO: Yes. Listen, I agree with you. Final question just quickly, should there be a mute button for the next debate to enforce the time limits on candidates?

PAGE: You know, I think I would have -- I guess I don't know the answer to that question. I'm not sure if I would have used one if I had had one. I wish we -- I hope we can figure out a way to have a respectful conversation without a mute button. SCIUTTO: Let's hope so. Susan Page, listen, thanks so much for joining

us. I look forward to -- you're welcome on this broadcast at any time.

PAGE: Thanks. Thanks very much, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, yesterday President Trump called vice presidential candidate, Senator Kamala Harris, a monster twice and a communist, echoing the rhetoric of Joe McCarthy. We reached out to the top three Senate Republicans for their response to this attack, personal attack on their Senate colleague.

We received nothing from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell nor majority whip, the number two, John Thune, so far. The number three, Republican John Barrasso e-mailed me the following. "I serve with her, I like her personally, but I will tell you her voting record is the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. Even more liberal than Bernie Sanders."

No mention there of the president using the term monster, using the term communist about a fellow senator. We continue to welcome any specific responses to the president's personal attack.

HARLOW: Well, Louisiana is still reeling from Hurricane Laura and now it is bracing for Hurricane Delta to hit today. We're going to talk to the state's lieutenant governor ahead.

SCIUTTO: Plus FBI agents have broken up a domestic terrorism plot to kidnap and try Michigan's governor. We are finding out more about the group behind the plot. The details are stunning.

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[09:15:00]

HARLOW: Well, right now, Hurricane Delta is lashing the southwest coast of Louisiana, it is a Cat 3 storm.

SCIUTTO: The National Hurricane Center says it could bring life- threatening storm surge. CNN's Derek Van Dam is following the latest from Delcambre, Louisiana. Derek, this would be the fourth named storm to hit Louisiana this year. In the most recent storms, the worst warnings about storm surge did not come to be, of course, you never know when it will, but how are folks there preparing and what do we know about what will happen going forward these next few days?

DEREK VAN DAM, METEOROLOGIST: Well, Hurricane Laura definitely had storm surge impacts in the location where I'm standing which I'll show you proof of in just one moment, Jim and Poppy. But can you believe fourth-named tropical storm to impact Louisiana this season, this is also the record tenth named tropical cyclone to impact the continental United States.

I mean, it was only six weeks ago that Lake Charles and much of the southern central coast of Louisiana was completely impacted and altered by Hurricane Laura. Thirty thousand homes destroyed, 35,000 homes had damage and they're still building back the power grid, and there are still several thousand people in shelters. Now, we are in Delcambre, Louisiana, this is the Vermilion Parish,

there are mandatory evacuations here, this is very representative of the region, lots of fishing industry across this area. I talked about Hurricane Laura being on the minds of residents here and locals because it did impact this region.

[09:20:00]

Let me show you why? The restaurant associated with this gentleman's fishing boat actually took damage. There is a high water level mark from Hurricane Laura just six weeks ago, they had a couple feet of water within their home. We actually have noticed the surge rise -- raise the water here by about a foot already today, of course, that also includes some of the high tide that is ongoing right now.

So we do anticipate going forward, this Category 3 as it stands right now to weaken somewhat. But remember, as a weakening hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico does expand its wind field, so that means the effects of this storm will be felt well outside the center of the storm because hurricane force winds extend about 40 miles from the center, tropical force winds, 160 miles from the center.

We talk about the eastern portions of the storm, the right-front quadrant, that is where we have the potential for tornadic development, spin up of tornadoes, the storm surge threat here Vermilion Bay, 7 to 11 feet above, normally dry ground, that means impacts felt here and across some of the local bayous and canals that dot the landscape of southern Louisiana will certainly feel the impacts, and we'll be monitoring for that for flash flooding. Poppy, back to you.

HARLOW: We're so appreciative of you being there, Derek. Thanks for the reporting very much. Let's go straight now to Louisiana's Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser. Good morning lieutenant governor. You just heard Derek reporting, tornadoes are possible across your state, storm surges of 7 to 11 feet, and the Governor John Bel Edwards said yesterday, this is going to hit the parts of your state that are least prepared for it. What are you bracing for?

BILLY NUNGESSER, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA: Absolutely. You know, all across coastal Louisiana and just coming out of Hurricane Laura, Cameron Parish has been hit by so many storms over the years. I believe over the last 150 years, 50 storms have come ashore there. And just starting to clean up debris from this last storm, it's unfortunate that they're going to take another hit. Still close to 10,000 people in hotels and shelters, not even back home or to their home parish yet. This is just another blow.

HARLOW: What is this storm going to do to the areas that were devastated by Laura? I mean, 30 people died as a result of Laura. You wrote a letter to the White House on Monday asking for aid and money to help because of all the damage from that, and now this six weeks later.

NUNGESSER: Absolutely. We asked the president to waive the local match, knowing that these local communities that are already suffering financially because of the COVID-19, there's no way they can make that local match with FEMA for all the things to come. And now on top of that, another storm. We had asked for an early -- declaring a 100 percent FEMA reimbursement, so we know there's light at the end of the tunnel when we're rebuilding. That financial burden will not be placed on local government.

HARLOW: But did you hear back from the president?

NUNGESSER: We have not heard back yet.

HARLOW: What do you do if you don't hear from the --

NUNGESSER: I did --

HARLOW: White House? I mean, what do you do without that aid?

NUNGESSER: Well, I'll keep calling. I spoke to the White House this past weekend, and after this storm, I will be back on the phone, as many of our elected officials will be, to urge to waive that match as we try to recover from yet another storm. And hopefully after this storm passes, the country will not forget that the rebuilding begins and it's a long path. And the aid from outside the state really helps us rebuild as these people are down on their luck, seeing help come from out of state has really been --

HARLOW: Yes --

NUNGESSER: A big support.

HARLOW: Yes, you're so right. You're so right. Look, this is now the second strongest storm of the season in the Atlantic basin. The 25th named storm of this hurricane season, and we're still early in the season. The fourth to hit Louisiana. Do you believe human-induced climate change is making these hurricanes more powerful, more intense and more deadly?

NUNGESSER: Well, it's absolutely having an effect. We're having more of them. You've got sea rise, you've got coastal erosion, so they're stronger, we're seeing more of them and they're having a great impact because of all three of those things on the complete coast, not just Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama. So, we're going to continue to see more hurricanes, stronger and have a greater impact on the people living along the coast because of sea rise and the coastal erosion.

HARLOW: There are some Republican leaders who agree with you in Congress, and there are others who don't -- the vice president was asked about it this week in the debate. I just wonder what your message is to any leaders in your party who don't believe what you're living through.

[09:25:00]

NUNGESSER: Well, I think you can come here along the coast and see it, not just in Louisiana, and reminding the country the importance of the coast, the Gulf Coast. We're the number two producer of crude oil, natural gas, we're number four, and the capacity of refining capacity --

HARLOW: Yes --

NUNGESSER: In Louisiana is number two in the country. So this coast is so important to the country. We need to make sure we protect it.

HARLOW: Lieutenant governor, thank you very much for being here. Good luck, we're going to be thinking about you guys all weekend.

NUNGESSER: Thank you so much.

HARLOW: Of course. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Our best to the people of Louisiana. Well, President Trump and the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, exchanged insults just hours after the FBI exposed a dangerous terrorist plot to kidnap her. I'm going to be joined next by Michigan's lieutenant governor to discuss what happens next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)