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Georgia Voters Face Long Lines, Computer Problems; Texas County Extends Voting Hours After Glitch; Trump, Biden Supporters Square Off in Pennsylvania; U.S. Justice Department, "Unmasking" Probe Ends with No Charges; Washington Post: Trump Pushes Theory Bin Laden Raid with Hoax; Russia Registers Second Vaccine Ahead of Phase 3 Trials; Man Loses Father and Seven Other Family Members to Virus. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired October 15, 2020 - 04:30   ET

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


[04:30:00]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to our viewers in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber and you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Voters in the U.S. state of North Carolina will get to cast their ballots in just a few hours, joining millions of Americans who are voting early. Georgia is breaking records for turnout, despite some computer glitches. But the Secretary of State says the long lines are simply because some precincts are more popular with voters.

In Texas, a suburban Houston county will extend voting hours this week after someone entered the wrong date into the system shutting down the machines. We'll get more from some of our correspondents reporting from these early voting states.

Date into the system shutting down the machines. We'll get more from some of our correspondents reporting from some of these early voting states.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ed Lavandera in Richardson, Texas. Across this state, we are seeing record numbers of people turning out to vote early in the first two days of the early voting period here. Around a million votes already cast. There are about 17 million registered voters in this state.

And here in Richardson, we are in one of the northern suburbs of Dallas. And this is one of those areas where political operatives will be watching very closely here in the weeks ahead leading up to this election.

These are areas that have been reliably Republican for decades in this state. And this is exactly the kind of area where we are seeing evidence that President Trump is alienating so many Republican voters. So, the question is how many of these voters will flip from President Trump to vote for Joe Biden in this election. That is the major question and where many Democrats believe they have a reason to be hopeful. This state has not voted for a Democrat since 1976, Jimmy Carter and a Democrat hasn't won statewide officer here for almost 25 years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Amara Walker in Marietta, Georgia. We are continuing to see long lines for early voting throughout the state. Part of the reason is that a lot of polling sites are still dealing with issues related to electronic poll pads. These are the electronic voter check-in systems that verifies the voter's registration and then generates an access card for the voter to cast their ballot.

The Georgia secretary of state says that this has been a statewide issue. It has caused a crashing of the system in Gwinnett County on Tuesday for half an hour.

Here at this particular location in Cobb County we're told that the slowdown of the system, contributed to a five hour wait time on the first day of early voting which was on Monday. We are told that officials are working to solve this problem by the end of the week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: President Trump's narrow victory in Pennsylvania helped propel him to office in 2016. Now, the state is again center stage as the President and Joe Biden return there, time and time again. Biden has made his campaign headquarters in Philadelphia while the President tries to get even more out of his base. Here's CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A line forms outside well before opening waiting to enter the Trump House.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're ready for the next group to come in.

BASH: A mecca of sorts for the President's supporters in southwest, Pennsylvania where Trump's record turnout four years ago help deliver his surprise Pennsylvania victory and the White House.

LESLIE ROSSI, OWNER AND CREATOR, THE TRUMP HOUSE: Shirt or hat per person, you get a sign or flag.

BASH: Leslie Rossi created the Trump House in 2016, where she pushed disaffected Democrats and never before voters to choose Trump.

ROSSI: We gave people a place to come to believe they could win.

BASH: Now Trump supporters show up daily for swag and yard signs and help registering to vote. SCOTT HARRER, TRUMP SUPPORTER, FIRST-TIME VOTER: We need Trump in here again, I'm 65, I think it's time to register.

BASH (on camera): Have you not voted ever?

HARRER: No.

BASH (voice-over): Rural Westmoreland County seen a surge in Republican registrations, they help with that here too.

RITA BLAIR, FORMER DEMOCRAT: I changed my registration from Democrat to Republican.

BASH (on camera): Why?

BLAIR: From what I've seen in the past couple of years, I was ashamed to say I was a Democrat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a great honor to have you here in (INAUDIBLE).

BASH (voice-over): But Joe Biden isn't giving up here, campaigning in Westmoreland County this month. Hillary Clinton didn't come here in the general election.

(on camera): It's not an area Democrats come in and campaign very often, but you're here. Why?

JILL BIDEN, JOE BIDEN'S WIFE: I'm here because like I said, we are not taking any vote for granted.

GINA CERILLI, WESTMORELAND COUNTY COMMISSIONER: They've seen the past four with the --

BASH (voice-over): Gina Cerilli is county commissioner of Westmoreland, P.A. Ten years ago, she was Ms. Pennsylvania in Donald Trump's miss USA pageant. Now she's an elected Democrat working to blunt Trump's advantage here.

CERILLI: In 2016 Donald Trump was a fresh face. He was new to politics. Everyone was excited. He made big promises. Bring back jobs. But frankly, Donald Trump broke those promises.

BASH: In small town Pennsylvania, signs matter. Trumps are everywhere, big and bold. But Biden's are out there too.

CERILLI: When you see signs like this, it makes the Republicans and Democrats that voted for Trump in 2016 realize, I'm not alone. A big Biden challenge his supporters are being COVID careful.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never did we think we would be meeting via Zoom.

[04:35:00]

BASH: Phyllis Friend, head of Democratic Women of Westmoreland County, organizes from home. She's clear eyed about the Democrats' goal here in Trump country.

PHYLLIS FRIEND, HEAD OF DEMOCRATIC WOMEN OF WESTMORELAND: We can't win Pennsylvania for him, but we can add to the total numbers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, David, this is Jim, and I volunteer for the Trump campaign. How are you doing?

BASH: As for Republicans, they never stopped traditional ways of getting out the vote. Knocking on doors, walking in neighborhoods and masks and using a GOP data driven app to find and persuade voters.

BRITTNEY ROBINSON, PENNSYLVANIA RNC OPERATIONS MANAGER: Depending on who that voter is, we're able to tailor that message at the door and on the phone to how we think we need to target that voter and turn them out.

BASH: Given that President struggles in the suburbs, boosting the vote here is critical for Trump.

(on camera): How important is it for him to get his numbers even higher than it was four years ago?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do think that we need to increase our voter turnout here for the president to offset some of what might be happening in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania.

BASH (voice-over): Back at the Trump, Leslie Rossi shows us the log of visits from thousands of Trump supporters.

(on camera): What do you think this year?

ROSSI: Oh, my numbers have tripled, tripled. Four years ago, my work was really hard here. I had to convince the voters to vote for the candidate. I had to convince them President Trump was the best choice for them. This time, I don't have to do any of that. They're all in.

BASH (voice-over): Whether enough are all in, could determine whether Trump wins Pennsylvania and a second term.

Dana Bash, CNN, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: For months, President Trump and his allies claim they uncovered a huge political scandal involving the Obama administration. They called it a domestic spying operation and had the U.S. Justice Department investigate, but the probe found no wrongdoing, well, they didn't feel the need to give that outcome as much attention. Alex Marquardt reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): An investigation that President Trump touted as a scandal has now quietly ended in a whimper. The months-long Justice Department investigation which was ordered by Attorney General Bill Barr into the unfounded allegations against the Obama administration in its final days has come up empty.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a big thing going on right now, which is spying. And it's -- you can call it anything you want, the unmasking and the spying. And, to me, that's the big story right now.

MARQUARDT: The President's repeated accusations that his campaign was spied on by the Obama White House led to the investigation which was launched this spring and led by a senior U.S. attorney.

The goal, to look into the Obama administration's requests for the revealing of American names or unmasking in intelligence reports. One name that was revealed was Trump adviser General Michael Flynn, who before the election had been speaking with the Russian Ambassador who was under surveillance.

Earlier this year, Republican Senators released a long unclassified list of Obama officials, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who had requested the unmasking, alleging that it showed the Obama White House was spying on Trump.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): This is a scandal of -- really, if we weren't involved in the COVID-19 crisis, this would be a scandal, the biggest thing since Watergate.

MARQUARDT: But the DOJ investigation found, according to "The Washington Post," that everything had been done legally and there was no wrongdoing, resulting in no criminal charges and no public report.

Unmasking is a standard part of intelligence gathering. If foreign intelligence reports contain the name of American citizens, those are always redacted. However, certain U.S. government officials have the ability to un-redact or unmask those names to better understand the report. And unmasking has actually gone up under Trump.

DONALD AYER, FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL UNDER GEORGE H.W. BUSH: People who understand unmasking and what it is understood from the start that this was a complete nothing burger. And so, it was trotted out as something that sounded sinister or could be made to sound peculiar and strange.

MARQUARDT (on camera): President Trump now clearly not happy with the Department of Justice or his Attorney General Bill Barr. He was asked by the right-wing news outlet, "Newsmax," whether Barr would have a role in a possible second term. President Trump said he had no comment, that it was too early. He called the lack of indictments after the investigation a disgrace and ridiculous, not the tone of someone who's going to let go of this idea that his campaign was illegally spied on.

Alex Marquart, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Now undeterred, President Trump is now leaning into another fake conspiracy theory in an attempt to discredit former President Barack Obama. "The Washington Post" reports the President used his Twitter account to promote an absurd claim that Osama bin Laden wasn't killed by U.S. Special Forces in May 2011. The Post says the President even re-tweeted an allegation that the Obama administration deliberately shot down a military helicopter with U.S. Navy SEALs as part of an elaborate cover up. One of the people on the bin Laden raid spoke to CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:40:00]

ROB O'NEIL, FORMER U.S. NAVY SEAL: Well, the first thing I want to say is that every man that was on the that mission to include the air crew and the pilots are all alive. We all went in there. We all kissed our kids good-bye expecting death because of what happened on 9/11 and we were going to do it.

And then just right now to see it being these conspiracy theories thrown around due to politics, it's almost like -- it's an insult to real people because they bring in another event from part of brothers at SEAL team 6 that was shot down in August.

But despite doing this stuff on the internet and making such light of something like something, because you're really trampling on graves of some of the best heroes I've ever personally worked with. And it's just a shame that we have gotten there because of politics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: That was former U.S. Navy SEAL Rob O'Neill who was part of the operation that killed bin Laden on May 1, 2011.

A Missouri couple caught on tape pointing guns at protesters have now pleaded not guilty to weapons and evidence tampering charges. That came during a hearing in St. Louis on Wednesday. Now you may remember this video of Mark and Patricia McCloskey from late June. It was posted on social media showing them holding guns outside their home as protesters walked down a private street. The White House has defended the couple and the two even spoke during the Republican National Convention.

And another story that was big on social media, you may remember the white woman who called police on a black man in New York's Central Park last May claiming he was threatening her. Well, now prosecutors say she actually called twice, falsely claiming the man was trying to assault her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY COOPER, FALSELY ACCUSED BLACK MAN OF ASSAULTING HER: I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life.

CHRISTIAN COOPER: Please, tell them whatever you like.

A. COOPER: There is an African American man -- I'm in Central Park -- he's recording this and threatening myself and my dog. I'm being threatened by a man. Please send the cops immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

The man Amy Cooper accused, Christian Cooper -- no relation -- was simply trying to bird watch in the park that day. Amy Cooper is charged with falsely reporting an assault. She made a court appearance on Wednesday but didn't enter a plea.

Now just two months after Russia announced it first coronavirus vaccine, President Vladimir Putin says the government has now approved a second one. We'll have the details from Moscow next. Stay with us.

[04:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: Russia now says it's registered a second coronavirus vaccine ahead of phase III trials. The news comes as the country reports it highest single day death toll so far. Our Frederik Pleitgen joins us from Moscow. Fred, so, I understand this vaccine was created by a former biological weapons research laboratory. How much confidence can we have in this latest vaccine?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kim this is from the Vector Institute which is based in Siberia. And you are absolutely right. Vladimir Putin announced that this new vaccine had been approved yesterday at a cabinet meeting. And it's also the case that just like with the first Russian vaccine that was approved called Sputnik V, the same is the case with the vector vaccine and that it has not gone through the key phase 3 trials which of course, are the main trials to determine whether a vaccine is safe, and whether a vaccine is effective.

Those are the trials where the vaccine and placebo are given to tens of thousands of participants in those large trials. The Russians say with the vector vaccine, that so far, it's been administered to only about 100 people. That was 14 people in the phase 1 of the trial, and then 86 people in phase 2 of the trial. However, from what the scientists are saying, they say there are no serious side effects, and they also believe that this vaccine will be effective.

But again, of course those phase 2 trials have not even started yet. They're now saying that they want to start producing this vaccine to make about 60,000 doses as fast as possible. But one of the things that does appear to be clear is that neither of the two vaccines are going to be available to the larger, broader public here in Russia anytime soon.

In fact, the Moscow mayor said a couple of days ago that he believes it will be several months before a vaccine is going to be available on an industrial scale. And as we've mentioned over the past two weeks, round about, and especially over the past week, Russia has seen record numbers of new infections several days. They're a little bit down today at 13,754. But again, as you mentioned, the death toll of 286 is the single highest death toll for a single day. And so, the Russian authorities seem to very much be on top of the

fact that it's not going to be the vaccine, at least in the short-term that's going to bring the situation under control. That's why they're saying and they're calling on people to abide by the anti-pandemic measures and they're also putting new measures in place. Like for instance, they've announced over the past couple of days that some of the school classes -- right now, school holidays but those are going to end soon. Some school classes are going to do long distance learning and are not going to be going back to school.

So, there are certain measures that are in place. But the Russian government at this point says they are still going to be able to avoid, they believe, a full lock down of the country, which of course is something that Russia did see earlier this year -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. All right, thank you so much, Fred Pleitgen from Moscow. Appreciate it.

Still ahead, the heart wrenching toll of COVID-19. The virus not only killed eight members of one man's family, now it's taking his livelihood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD AGUIRRE, LOST FAMILY MEMBERS AND BUSINESS TO COVID-19: This is what's left of ten years of hard work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: For the past seven months, COVID-19 has brought death and hardship to people around the world. One Arizona man understands the painful toll all too well as he struggles to cope with the deaths of loved ones and the loss of his once thriving business. CNN's Miguel Marquez has this story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD AGUIRRE, LOST FAMILY MEMBERS AND BUSINESS TO COVID-19: I don't want to cry because I know God has something better for me

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ricardo Aguirre.

AGUIRRE: But it's hard not to just, you know, the --

MARQUEZ: The coronavirus killed his father and seven other family members he says. It took his business. It sickened him, his wife who was then four months pregnant and two of his kids.

AGUIRRE: I'm feeling very incompetent. A man might want -- not at all. I'm not been able to go back to where it was. I lost my dad. It's very hard. It's hard. MARQUEZ: He doesn't know how they contracted the virus. They wore masks and used sanitizers constantly. It swept through his family in May, his father fought the virus for months.

AGUIRRE: My dad unfortunately, you know, he passed away in September 11, in my arms at 3:30 in the morning. It was very hard because we did everything together -- 42 years being by his side.

MARQUEZ: His mother is home and still fighting the effects of the virus. Now he spends his days shuttling her to hospital visits. Helping his wife now eight months pregnant dealing with an ever- increasing pile of bills. All this with little income and no health insurance.

(on camera): You don't have medical coverage.

AGUIRRE: I don't have medical coverage at all. It's just too much.

MARQUEZ: Even Obamacare?

AGUIRRE: No.

MARQUEZ: You just can't afford anything.

AGUIRRE: No, I can't afford it. It's just too much. It's literally another house payment.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre and his family, built Tacos y Tamales Pueblo he had a food truck, a prep kitchen in downtown Phoenix and a long list of corporate and wedding clients.

[04:55:00]

AGUIRRE: This is what is left of 10 years of hard work.

MARQUEZ (on camera): You were living the American dream.

AGUIRRE: Yes, I was.

Come visit us. As you can see, we are busy.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): When coronavirus cases in Arizona jumped and the economy shut down, Aguirre watched all his catering jobs scheduled for the next year evaporate.

His food truck was repossessed. He couldn't pay rent on his prep kitchen.

(on camera): When did it all come to a halt?

AGUIRRE: March 17.

MARQUEZ: COVID?

AGUIRRE: Yes.

MARQUEZ: Overnight.

AGUIRRE: Yes, just like that.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre would like the President to understand just how devastating the disease is for some.

(on camera): When he says don't be afraid of, COVID don't let it dominate your life, what do you say to him?

AGUIRRE: May God continue to bless you and your family.

MARQUEZ: But how does the real-world deal with COVID?

AGUIRRE: It's bad. It's bad.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre is now looking forward to that big day in November, November 7th. The day his first daughter is due to be born.

AGUIRRE: We felt that we were ready financially, and we were ready, you know, emotionally, you know, to take care of another human being. Now with this going on, I just ask God for strength to get me by another day.

MARQUEZ: The real toll of the coronavirus on one American family.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Phoenix.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Well, on that sad note, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Kim Brunhuber. "EARLY START" is up next.

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