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President Trump Holds Campaign Rally in Florida Where Attendees Do Not Wear Masks or Social Distance; Johnson & Johnson Pauses Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Due to Unexplained Illness of Participant; Senate Judiciary Committee to Continue Confirmation Hearings for Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett; Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is Interviewed on Biden Targeting Voters with Message of Economic Recovery and About Trump's Supreme Court Nominee. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 13, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:01]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and the all around the world. This is NEW DAY. Asking for trouble, that is what Dr. Anthony Fauci says this morning. The president is asking for trouble in the coronavirus pandemic. And in some ways, it seems the country is, too, because cases are increasing in 33 states. All the states there in orange and red. Five states are reporting record hospitalizations, 13 states have a positivity right higher than 10 percent at this point, which means community transmission is clearly accelerating. One of these states is Florida, asking for trouble. President Trump held this packed rally. He's throwing masks to the crowd there, they're not wearing them, he's not wearing them, no social distancing. Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's these types of events that are dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We know that that is asking for trouble when you do that. We've seen that when you have situations of congregate settings where there are a lot of people without masks. The data speak for themselves. It happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joe Biden also with a campaign swing through states this week, got Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Also breaking overnight, Johnson & Johnson pausing its phase three coronavirus vaccine trial because of an unexplained illness with one of the study's participants. It's the second major vaccine trial now on hold in the U.S.

We are an hour away from senators questioning President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. We have a live report from the capitol coming up for you.

BERMAN: We're going to begin, though, with the pandemic clearly heading in the wrong direction. Joining us now, CNN political commentator Van Jones, and Andy Slavitt, former acting administrator for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the author of "Preventable, The Inside Story of How Leadership Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response," 215,000 Americans now dead from coronavirus.

Andy Slavitt, the hospitalization rate around the country is rising, and those are people, again, sick enough to be hospitalized. It's not about a lot of testing. That is a clear indication things are heading in the wrong direction. You've been in conversations with people all across the country, including Republican governors, Andy, who tell you they're seeing very concerning things. What are you hearing?

ANDY SLAVITT, FORMER ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, what's happening now, and it seems to be in the northern states is a little bit different version of what we saw in the south during the summer. In the south folks headed indoors, people were less cautious, and we saw, as you know, a great outbreak, big outbreaks in Florida, Arizona, and Texas.

Now I think what we're seeing is a little bit of the reverse of that. People heading indoors in the winter. One of the things that's different is this appears to be primarily concentrating in rural communities now. And the reason for this, or at least the reason according to several of the governors that I talked to, is mask compliance in urban communities is very high, as high as 90 percent in some cities, which is where it should be. In rural communities it's quite low. In rural communities there are a lot of social gatherings, a lot of life is normal, and that's causing outbreaks, it's causing lots of challenges.

So our enemy isn't knowing what to do any longer. Our enemy is helping people understand why it's in their best interest and our best interest for people to do it.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Andy, except that the enemy is still misinformation, of course, and knowing what to do. There are people -- we just spoke to a man -- who are not getting the real information. Wherever they go for their news or whoever they're talking to, they still think that it's sort of a media hoax. That's the circle that they travel in. And here is an example for you, Van. It would be one thing if the Trump administration were giving the real information to people but saying, hey, you do what you want, you are all adults, I take off the mask because that's how I like to roll. That's not what's happening. Rudy Giuliani met with 75 Trump supporters yesterday and he told them something completely erroneous. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: People don't die of this disease anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they don't.

GIULIANI: Young people don't die at all. Middle age people die very little, and even elderly people have only a one percent chance of dying. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: He said people don't die of this disease anymore. That's not what the truth is. Look at the numbers on your screen. It goes up by 1,000 a day, 215,000 Americans now dead.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, it's remarkable. Lies kill. Lies kill. In a pandemic, lies kill. 9/11, the horrible tragedy that we still, you know, mourn every year, 3,000 Americans killed, murdered. We have two or three 9/11s every week in this country. To say that people don't die anymore is such a disrespect, it's literally spitting in the face of people.

[08:05:00]

And, by the way, people are losing loved ones that they can't hold their hands in the last moment, they can't go to the funeral, you are having to have drive-by funerals, Zoom funerals, so the grieving process is interrupted. And we are not talking about 3,000 people. We're talking about 215,000 people. By the end of the week there will be another 9/11 worth of deaths in this country.

And so lies kill. And what you have now is a political movement that cannot handle the truth. The sign of being tough is you can handle the truth. You have an entire political movement around this president that cannot handle the truth, that has to create a fantasy world to live in and now to die in because they just will not acknowledge the fact that this pandemic has gotten completely out of control, it's killing more Americans now than it was even a month ago, and we are in real trouble here.

BERMAN: It's interesting because his chief of staff yesterday refused to wear a mask talking to reporters in a cramped Capitol Hill hallway. Ron DeSantis, and I think we have that video, the governor of Florida at this Trump rally last night walks in, he's high-fiving people. Not only enough not to wear the mask, but he's got to get right up close to them, close enough to slap skin, which we just know isn't safe, Andy Slavitt. And it's just interesting, because these rallies we're not seeing anything else like this in the country at this point. Even sporting events where they are allowing fans in at this point, they are socially distanced. So there is nowhere you can look in America other than a Trump rally, I don't think, to see thousands of people packed in cheek to jowl.

SLAVITT: It's not just America. I think there are very few examples around the world. Not that people aren't tired of the pandemic and they're not exhausted and so forth, but what's different here is -- and according to the Republican governors that I've spoken to -- it's becoming a symbol of defiance, not wearing the mask. When Trump -- people viewed Trump whipping that mask on as he heartily climbed those steps outside the White House, as a signal to them of sorts that said don't listen to the scientists, listen to me. This is about your freedom. And he has made this about the notion of freedom, I think forgetting the fact that Trump inherited a freedom and a set of freedoms that were hard fought for by many people, including lots and lots of sacrifice. And the freedom that he's choosing to wage his battle over, as Van said, is one that's causing people their lives.

CAMEROTA: Case in point, our Gary Tuchman went to that rally in Florida to ask people why aren't you wearing your mask, and he got some very interesting responses. Here are some.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A mask can actually do more harm than good to individuals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can do more harm?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can, because people can faint because there's too much carbon dioxide going into their system.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think that's a big problem, people fainting all over the country from masks and dropping dead?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, just enough. Enough people are getting ill because they're wearing a mask.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where does that come from?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Common sense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've also seen the numbers drop every single day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The numbers are going up now, though.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Trump says it's disappearing, but it's not. That's not the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm debating on whether what the truth is for that because of what I can see it's -- all the numbers that I have read have been down, and I'm seeing that the flu is taking more people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that's what you believe?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me ask you this, if President Trump at the rally said everyone put on your masks --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would put it on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: She says she would put it on if the president told her to, Van. JONES: Well, yes, leadership matters. That's one of the things that

-- why do you want your kids to be associated with good kids rather than bad kids? Because bad kids can get your kids in trouble. People follow social cues, they follow the crowd, they do what they think is cool and acceptable with their peer group. If you have the leader, the top dog of your political movement, because Donald Trump isn't just the head of state, he's also the head of a mass movement in this country that elected him that he continues to throw red meat to, if the cool thing to do to be a part of that thing is to rip your mask off people will risk their lives.

It's unbelievable, the psychology of human behavior. People would literally rather die than be ostracized from a group. That's how death cults and all kinds of stuff can take root. You have got to be very, very careful. When you have got a platform, you have got to use it responsibly. You're seeing now athletes using their platforms more responsibly than the president of the United States when it comes to the social issues of the day, and that's part of the reason that I think Trump's numbers are so bad with older voters, because I think older voters are especially aware of the importance of great leadership. They've seen the Reagans, they've seen the Kennedys, they've seen the Obamas, they've seen these great leaders. And I think older voters are very, very alarmed to see the example he's setting for the next generation.

BERMAN: It's so interesting because clearly it's bad public health, but, Van, I think every day that passes there is evidence that what he is doing might be bad politics also. He may be leaning into the exact wrong things that might help him over the next three weeks as people vote.

[08:10:08]

Andy, one bit of scientific news, medical news overnight I want your take on, which is that Johnson & Johnson has paused its large vaccine trial, it was supposed to have 60,000 participants, because one of the people in the trial become ill. We don't know why. It isn't clear it was because of the vaccine or maybe the placebo. But that trial is now on pause. What's the major take away for people there, Andy?

SLAVITT: I think the thing that we should think about is, last year how many clinical trials have been paused for an adverse event? The answer is we don't know because it happens all the time and it's not a big deal. These are trials we have been watching closely, and so I think the danger is that it gets blown a little bit too far out of proportion and people start to get too worried about vaccines and vaccine safety.

This is exactly what's supposed to happen. It's why trials need to take their time. It's why the idea of Trump rushing one before the election is ridiculous. They take the time they take. These events do not necessarily mean anything. It's actually quite a good fact, it's a comforting fact to me when these events happen and the trials stop and we learn what happened. And it may be a big deal, it may not, it's most likely not a big deal because, as you said, it could be the placebo, it could be someone getting sick for some other reason. But I don't think the public should react to this in any way.

BERMAN: Andy Slavitt, Van Jones, thank you both for waking up early for us this morning, appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: OK, in less than an hour, senators will begin questioning President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. CNN's Lauren Fox is live on the capitol, on Capitol Hill with a preview. Hi, Lauren.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Good morning, Alisyn. That's right, in just a little under an hour we expect that this is going to be Democrats' first opportunity to grill Amy Coney Barrett on her judicial philosophy, her writings, speeches that she's given in the past, and expect them to be delving into two key issues. One of them, of course, the question of whether or not she views Roe v Wade as precedent and settled precedent at that. The other issue they're going to be delving into is the Affordable Care Act and her philosophy on that law.

Remember, in 2017 in a law review article she basically questioned whether or not Judge Roberts had gone too far in defending the ACA and protecting it. So expect the Democrats are going to be asking her a lot of questions today about how she will rule on any case about the ACA, especially because the week after the election on November 10th the Supreme Court will hear arguments over an ACA case that really threatens the entire law. So that's where Democrats are going.

And they gave us a little bit of a sneak peek yesterday on exactly what they want this to be about. Here is what a couple of Democrats and Republicans were fighting about yesterday in their opening statements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, (D-MN): The Affordable Care Act protects you from getting kicked off of your insurance. That's on the lines.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D-CA) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They are trying to get a justice on to the court in time to ensure they can strip away the protections of the Affordable Care Act.

CHUCK GRASSLEY, (R) CHAIR, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Republicans are following the Constitution and the precedent. It seems Democrats would rather just ignore both.

THOM TILLIS, (R-NC) SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: The hypocrisy is incredible. They ignore a central fact -- Judge Barrett's rulings aren't meant to be for or against a particular policy outcome. She is not a legislator. That's our job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And you see Thom Tillis there, he will be back on Capitol Hill today after he had tested positive for coronavirus more than a week ago. Of course, Lindsey Graham already moving ahead to scheduling a critical vote on October 22nd to get Amy Coney Barrett out of committee. We then expect a full floor vote on October 29th. There aren't a lot of tools Democrats can use to stop the nomination at this point, so expect that today is really going to be them getting out their message ahead of the election about what this nomination means on health care. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Lauren, thank you very much for that preview.

So this week Joe Biden is hitting the campaign trail. We're going to take a closer look at his strategy to win in battleground states.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: When you see the abuse of power, there's only one way to respond to it, and that's with power, and the only power we have to take on corporate America is union power. That's the only power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That was Joe Biden campaigning in Ohio, stressing an economic message and trying to cast President Trump as abandoning working class voters. So, does he have evidence that that strategy is working?

Joining us now is Democratic Senator Chris Coons. He's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who will be questioning Judge Amy Coney Barrett today.

And we will get to that in a moment, Senator. But because you are such a dedicated Joe Biden friend and supporter, let's just talk about what the former VP is doing on the campaign trial because those white working class male voters are President Trump's biggest base of support.

And so, it seems that Joe Biden is going after them and is there evidence that that is working at the moment?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Yes, one of the reasons I was excited when Joe first came to me and said he was considering getting into the race for 2020 was because of who he is, his background, his character, his faith, his experience growing up in a blue collar working community in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and in Claymont, Delaware.

Joe has never forgotten where he is from. He has always stood with the men and women of organized labor and he has always fought hard for the working class. Somehow, Donald Trump persuaded Middle America that this guy who lives in a gilded tower on Fifth Avenue actually now lives in Mar-a-Lago in Florida, actually is on their side.

Joe Biden is someone who I think has been on their side his whole life and we're seeing in polling all over the country that that combination of Joe's decency and compassion, the ways in which he has always fought hard for the working men and women of the United States and the contrast, the sharp contrast that shows to Donald Trump's bungled mishandling to this pandemic and the recession that's hurt so many American families means Joe is ahead in all the critical battleground states right now.

CAMEROTA: About that polling and about him being ahead there, can you just peel back the curtain a little bit on how the campaign is responding to that? Because I know that Democrats and you hear it everywhere, feel so blind-sided by what happened in 2016 that there is sort of a collective breath-holding, and I can't tell if the Biden campaign feels, you know, buoyancy, or if they're just kind of girding for these next 21 days.

COONS: Well, I got a text yesterday from a friend in Georgia who said she was coming out for early voting and surprised the wait was almost five hours. We continue to have real concerns about voter suppression, about ways in which voting has been made needlessly difficult, by lawsuits brought by Republican parties and Republican secretaries of state all over the country.

President Trump continues to throw doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in voting. So, I don't take any comfort at all from national polls. What matters is key swing state polls.

And while they are moving in the right direction, I agree with you, the 2016 experience cautions -- take nothing for granted, keep working very hard.

I'm encouraging everyone who supports Joe Biden to keep volunteering, keep reaching out, keep being engaged because this is far from a done deal, the next 21 days are absolutely critical.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's talk about what's going to happen today. Give us a preview. What's your top question for Judge Barrett?

COONS: What I'm wearing from Delawareans, Alisyn, is concern about health care, about the Supreme Court case that's going to be heard a week after the election and the key question, why? Why are we doing this hearing now in the middle of a pandemic when the Senate is shut down because there's three senators infected, there's been an outbreak at the White House that's infected more than 35 people, so why this rush?

I think the answer is hiding in plain sight. President Trump promised he would only choose a nominee who would overturn the Affordable Care Act, taking away health care protections from a majority of Americans. I will remind you, Alisyn, Justice Ginsburg whose seat we are having this hearing to fill dedicated her life to gender equality and one of the key provisions of the ACA protects women against discrimination by insurance companies just for being women.

Insurance companies used to treat pregnancy as a preexisting condition and there's 130 million Americans who have other preexisting conditions. I'll be asking her about her statements, a recent written statement in an article she wrote just in 2017 criticizing Chief Justice Roberts and his decision upholding the ACA on very similar grounds as those that the Trump administration is arguing in the Supreme Court, should justify taking away these critical health care protections from a majority of Americans.

CAMEROTA: Is there anything that she could say that would win you over with that answer?

COONS: She could say that's absolutely untrue, here is what I meant, and here is what I would do. But I don't expect her to do that.

She signaled loud and clear what she will do in this case, that's why President Trump chose her.

Now, to be clear, I'm not accusing her -- I'm not suggesting that she had some private conversation with the president where they cut some deal. That would be inappropriate and she specifically said she had no conversation about this case or any other individual case. But as an academic, she repeatedly wrote over and over in opinion and law review article after article what she would do not just with the Affordable Care Act but with precedent more broadly.

That's a fancy way of saying she's to the right of Justice Scalia. She has made it clear that she would join Justice Thomas and others in reaching back and overturning long settled cases from 20 or 30 years ago. She is at one end of the spectrum in terms of his expressed willingness to overturn precedent.

Even Justice Scalia at times hesitated to do that because of what's called reliance interest.

So there's millions and millions of Americans who have ordered their lives based on an expectation that the Affordable Care Act is law. It was settled eight years ago. That's the sort of thing that Justice Scalia in his earlier years might have said, OK, we shouldn't move ahead even if I disagree with this law.

Judge Barrett has made it clear things that were decided 20, 30, even 50 years ago, she may well go back and revisit. That's conservative judicial activism.

CAMEROTA: As a side issue, Senator Mike Lee was in the chamber yesterday.

COONS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And he was maskless for much of it. He tested --

COONS: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: -- he was diagnosed with coronavirus, I think, ten days ago. Did he give an explanation to you, fellow committee members, of why he was there in person instead of remotely?

COONS: Not to me, not that I remember. I'm certainly happy to go back and check. But I was surprised he was present.

Senator Tillis has also tested positive, he questioned remotely yesterday.

Frankly, Alisyn, I was more alarmed last Thursday when Mike Lee was also in the chamber with us here in the Kennedy caucus room, unmasked for a long period of time and gave about ten minutes of remarks at a very high level of agitation. I went home and got tested the next morning, I tested negative. I'm getting tested shortly here.

I think every senator should be getting tested every day and should have to prove that they've tested negative on a reliable test in order to participate. That's the standard all of us Democrats on the Judiciary Committee had suggested was that you should only participate in person if you test negative.

It frankly, Alisyn, points to the broader question, why are we doing this at all in the middle of a pandemic instead of focusing on delivering a round of pandemic relief to millions of Americans who are unemployed, whose kids can't safely go to school, whose parents might be in skilled nursing facilities, who they are worried about? Why aren't we doing our jobs?

Instead we're rushing through this -- racing through with this partisan nominee.

CAMEROTA: Senator Chris Coons, thank you very much --

COONS: Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: -- for giving us your perspective on all of these things.

And President Trump is banking on what he calls suburban housewives to carry him to victory, but is his support fading among those must-win swing voters?

CNN spoke to women who voted for President Trump in 2016 but now have had a change of heart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you regret your vote?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where we are today, yes, I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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