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Cuomo Prime Time
Biden Makes His Case On Coronavirus Response; TX Judge Strikes Down Governor's Order Limiting Ballot Drop Boxes; Ice Cube: "Black People Have No Capital". Aired 9-10p ET
Aired October 16, 2020 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: I am Chris Cuomo. Welcome to PRIME TIME.
We need to pay very close attention to what's happening with the Coronavirus, OK? We have very concerning data.
I don't have a single source, and there aren't many who are better- connected to what's going on with this situation, I don't have a single source that's not worried that didn't think we are in a worse place faster than they could have expected.
Now, last night, we heard Vice President Biden saying that he would chart a different course.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You can open businesses and schools if in fact you provide them the guidance that they need as well as the money to be able to do it.
You don't have large crowds. You reduce the size of the number of people you can have in the restaurant. You make sure there's testing. That's a really critical piece that he didn't do, testing and tracing. And you make sure that people are equipped.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Look, they are not equipped. They do need more resources and more guidance, on where to test, how to test, and to have the tests and the staff to contact trace and different protection strategies for different communities.
So, look, clearly, Biden has got to provide more details. But, directionally, that's - those are the right boxes he's checking. Compare that to the President. His plan, he said last night, is to smash the virus and go back to how things were. Eight-plus months into this, and that's all, he's got?
And then today, he told an elderly group this, in Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn. I say that all the time. Some of the media doesn't like hearing it.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: But I say it all the time. We are rounding that turn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: I don't like it because it's BS, and you are lying to one of the most vulnerable groups in a state like Florida, with its case growth, you have no shame when you know better.
This president oversees the agency that just released the data that's suggesting that we are climbing a new peak. The same people want to do more, OK? The White House won't let them do more, even though we topped 8 million cases in America today. The rate of spread is increasing. Hospitalizations are increasing.
Trump says he sees a "Light at the end of the tunnel?" He's right. The problem is that light, Mr. President, is the pain train.
Look at this. Just yesterday, we topped 60,000 new single-day cases in this country. Hasn't been this bad since August. 218,000 dead, plus estimates that have that toll accelerating. 300,000 by February, and for what, why? Because we didn't do it right this summer.
Now, people are heading indoors. There are more gatherings, social gatherings, family gatherings, the holidays are coming.
Masks are nowhere near being used in compliance, especially in Trump Country, which makes sense, seeing how the President keeps failing to tell people to wear them. Seems worse since he got Coronavirus. He said he learned something, he knows about the suffering. He knows what, to mock it?
Schools don't have the money or time to get proper ventilation. They are getting cases that they can't count or trace quickly enough in communities with spread. People are reopening the wrong way.
All of it begs for leadership. A lot of these cases, people don't know the right way. They don't understand the data. They're not getting it quickly enough. They can't respond quickly enough.
And how quickly does our President respond? What's his reaction to the latest alarm? He welcomed a crowded, mostly mask less mass of the faithful, this afternoon, two weeks to the day that he had to be air- lifted to Walter Reed because of his own symptoms. Got him spooked, and he needed two experimental treatments. And he got sick, most likely, from events just like this.
Our daily average now tops 53,000. That's a 14 percent jump, just from last week. We're not even into the really cold weather yet. People are still outside a lot. Schools, a lot of them, are still hybrid, or kids are home still.
Nine states broke records, yesterday, for new cases in a day. We're not in April or summer or winter. This is fall. And we are falling apart. We must have a better plan from the federal government.
Listen to Dr. Fauci.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: It's still not too late to vigorously apply good public health measures, and again, I emphasize, without necessarily shutting down the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: We are our own solution. It's always been that way.
[21:05:00]
Wearing masks, avoiding crowds, keeping your distance, it sounds simple, but we're not doing it. And, by the way, we do need more than that. That's what we can do. Federal government can do more.
Mr. President, please do something. It could win you the election. Pretend - do this. Pretend you are putting up a wall, all around the country, that COVID can't get over, and why? COVID, Coronavirus, Corona, Mexican beer, all right? Now, I'd laugh, if it weren't so damn sad.
We need more and better tests that fit different situations. Schools aren't football games, aren't pubs, aren't grocery stores. Different situations and populations demand different testing and parameters and protection strategies. We know all this. We're just not doing anything about it.
Yes, states are trying. But they need help. They don't have the data nor the dollars, to get it done, as the federal government can, and the federal government knows it. This president just doesn't think it works for him, even though it is killing others.
Instead, Trump is spending money on promoting Rose Garden tours restarting. The image that they used to promote that, look familiar? That's the supreme super-spreader of the virus, in all likelihood, in Trump World. But, hey, at least now they are asking most visitors to wear masks.
We had those dueling Town Halls last night, very controversial. But I think maybe they wound up being a little convincing. Maybe they are proof that outside of Trump's beloved base, people are getting sick of being sick, under this president.
Look, TV ratings, they don't tell you who is going to win the Electoral College. But we have never seen Trump get whooped in ratings.
And remember, he had the advantage. He was on multiple NBC-owned channels last night, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo, and he was having a slugfest with the Moderator. So, it was like a train wreck. And still, more than 14 million watched sober Biden giving answers that just sound presidential, and a million more than Trump.
The sad reality is that this president is probably more upset about the ratings than the new COVID numbers. But he's not saying a word about either. You know why? Because he wants you to pretend they don't exist.
But we cannot ignore a crisis. There are too many families. There is our kids' future. There's our economy. There are businesses. Ignoring something is not a plan. Just like the "Rush" song says, even "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
Let's get inside what's going wrong, and what it means for Joe Biden and the President in this election. Dr. Leana Wen and Van Jones are here.
So, Leana, you have good contacts as well, public policy background in Baltimore. I can't get a single source that isn't telling me to basically panic.
We thought we'd be in a better position during the summer. The compliance is nowhere near where we thought it had to be. We thought that we would have evolved in our testing strategy, that there'd be more resources that community spread would be at a different rate, hospitalizations would be different. It's all going the wrong way.
Do you know anything that can mitigate that level of concern?
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST, FORMER BALTIMORE HEALTH COMMISSIONER, ER PHYSICIAN, PUBLIC HEALTH PROFESSOR, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Well, yes and no. So, there is no metric that is indicating that we're headed in the right direction in this country.
We're to the point where hospitalizations are rising. We are at the highest rate of cases, new cases, since July, and we still have more than a dozen states where the test positivity rate is in the double- digits, which means that we're not doing nearly enough testing.
And if we did, we actually would have far more cases than we're currently reporting. So, the numbers look really bad. And, at this rate, we could be facing 200,000 more deaths by the end of the winter in the U.S. alone.
But all that said the future here is not inevitable. And, I think, this is key, that the future is in our hands. And so, I think that's the tragedy of it all. But it also gives us room for hope because there are things that we can do today.
And these are the things that you and I, and all the public health experts, have been talking about, for many months now, like mask wearing, social distancing, avoiding crowds. That's what we can do. And these are actions that each of us, as individuals, can take, even with the failure of our federal government.
CUOMO: All right, one other bounce, and then Van, I'm coming to you. So, another thing that was really bothering me was this determination that it's not right to have mandatory testing in schools, this ruling that came down.
[21:10:00]
I thought it was crazy, but then I got - I got pushed off it by my sources, who said "Doesn't matter about whether they're testing everybody. They are not going to be able to do it anyway."
And even in Florida, this former public health official just put out a report that we tried to get to you to review before now.
But the headline is that age is really important, and that the cases with elementary kids, is nowhere near what they are seeing with the high schoolers, and that the high schoolers, the connection between their cases is a coefficient of community spread.
So, the good/bad news is if you have community spread, and you don't do schooling the right way, meaning letting vulnerable people stay at home, and figuring out the right options, it explodes community spread. So, schooling can be a problem.
You will see it reflected in the community, doesn't matter how much testing you're going to do because the community spread aspect is as important as that community's kids being back in school.
So, what does that mean for how we get our kids back in school, if testing isn't the answer?
WEN: Well, testing is not the single answer. But I think it has to be part of a multi-prong strategy.
Surveillance testing, for example, is going to be really important because we know that children, in particular younger children, tend to be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.
And so, you could well have an outbreak, on your hands, before anyone even knows that it's occurring. So, having regular spot-checks and having also enough testing, so that students who do have symptoms or do have exposure can get tested.
It's actually really hard for kids, across the country, to find any practice that can give them tests. And so, having sufficient testing is going to be really important. But I think you make a really good point. It's really hard to keep a school free from Coronavirus, if the entire community around it is a hot bed of infection.
CUOMO: Right.
WEN: And that's why suppressing community spread is so important.
CUOMO: But I've just - I've never heard people as upset as they are right now. You know what I mean? In the beginning, it was shock. I'm saying, since the shock, like "Oh, my god, how real this is," I haven't heard them the way they are right now, about this.
So Van, the political implications, there is no questioning that messaging is a part of the madness here, that this President is going to own this pandemic. How big a factor do you think it is in this election? And how did you think that was reflected by Biden's disposition and detail of what he would do about it, last night, and in general?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: (OFF-MIKE).
CUOMO: Uh-oh!
JONES: Biden--
CUOMO: What? You're trying to give me a heart attack? The COVID's not enough?
JONES: No.
CUOMO: Coronary now?
JONES: You're up - you are upset enough tonight, brother. No heart attack for you.
What I was saying is that Biden is at his best on this issue. He's at his most presidential. His leadership, his steadiness, his empathy, it all shows through on this issue. And part of it is because what needs to be done is so clear, and he's so committed to it.
But I think that how this is going to play out for the electorate. As long as we are talking about numbers, people get numb. People are numb to the numbers. It's about the people.
Now, you think about the people who are literally - they have their loved ones, they are dying, they can't hold their hand, they can't touch them. The funeral that you're having, Zoom funerals, drive-by funerals.
Kristin Urquiza, remember her from the Democratic Convention?
CUOMO: Oh, yes.
JONES: Came out, talked about her father. She said the only pre- existing condition he had is that he believed in Donald Trump--
CUOMO: Voted Trump.
JONES: --when Donald Trump said "Don't worry about it." Those human stories of hers, and others, the more that breaks through, the more, I think, people will realize "We've got to have a different approach. You got to have different leadership."
These numbers are so overwhelming, and we're literally having like a 9/11 every other day that we almost are getting numb to it. But those human stories, like Kristin Urquiza, that's going to break through.
CUOMO: Does this break through what happened in terms of what Trump's warm-up act is? Senator Will (ph) Perdue, despite serving with Senator Kamala Harris, for three years, thought this was something the crowd would like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): But the most insidious thing that Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden are trying to perpetrate, and Bernie, and Elizabeth, and Ka-MAL-a (sic) or what - Ka-MAL-a or Kamala, Ka-mala, - mala, -mala, I don't know, whatever!
(CROWD LAUGHTER AND CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: "Ka-mala, -mala, -mala," you think he doesn't know how to say the name, or "You know, they got funny names, Van. They got funny names. They!"
JONES: No, it's disgusting. It's disgusting. I have two African- American boys. They have funny names, too. But those names mean something to my family, and they mean something to those boys.
[21:15:00]
And the idea that grown people are making fun of people's names is disgusting. And this is where we've arrived. And this is why even people who might be to Biden's left want to see a change.
CUOMO: Van, Dr. Leana Wen, thank you very much. Both of you have a happy and healthy weekend, and thank you. God bless. Appreciate you.
So, the President played--
WEN: Thank you.
CUOMO: --dumb, yet again, about the conspiracy theory group he's banking on to help him stay in office. In fact, he still found room to praise them. These are bad people, OK?
Now there is more evidence the GOP isn't just tolerating these sick and dangerous lies, but they are playing the games themselves. You will be remembered!
One of the country's top investigative reporters, and a former Senior White House insider, are here to tell us the truth of what we are learning just now, next.
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TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.
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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT. (END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:20:00]
CUOMO: File under "Sad but true," the President and his people are actively amplifying two major threats that face this nation, dangerous conspiracy theories, which his own FBI calls "A domestic terror threat," and an active attack in the form of Russian disinformation. And he's helping them.
Look, I don't give oxygen to garbage. I don't talk about stupid groups and give their names, so that they can get a bump the way the President does. But notice the contrast between two men, who bookended one of the darkest chapters in our history, the attacks on 9/11.
Rudy Giuliani denies the reality of a threat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: You know our government sees Andrii Derkach as a guy who should not be respected or trusted and that they think he's a propagandist--
RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: You know I don't--
CUOMO: --and an operative for the Russians.
GIULIANI: That's OK. They can see him that way. He is not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: He is not. But Rudy just happens to be parroting exactly what our Intelligence officials say Russian interference experts want you to think about Joe Biden, right in the White House, the President's lawyer.
Contrast that with former SEAL Team Six member, Rob O'Neill, who said this about the President's embrace of conspiracies, as endangering our way of life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROB O'NEILL, FORMER NAVY SEAL: And then, just right now, to see it being these conspiracist theories thrown around, due to politics, it's almost like - it's an insult to real people.
Despite doing this stuff on the internet, and making such light of something like this, you're really trampling on graves of some of the best heroes I've ever personally worked with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: I never thought anything could beat Trump, standing on the world stage, in Helsinki, and saying, to the world, that he believed Putin had anything to do with Russian interference because he told him he didn't. But this does it, disrespecting our SEAL team heroes, and questioning
whether or not we took out Osama bin Laden is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard a leader say. And he said it gladly, more than once.
And I am joined now, by two men, who know the risk, Investigative Reporter and Host of "Conspiracyland" podcast, Michael Isikoff, and former Chief of Staff to the DHS Secretary, Miles Taylor.
Welcome back to PRIME TIME, both of you.
Now, Miles, as kooky as this group is, and thinking that Democrats run a pedophile ring, and all this ugly stuff about the Catholic Church, they've had a handful of people do criminal things, murderous things, destructive things, over the last year or so, acting on it.
But what does it mean when the President of the United States says, "Yes, QAnon, you should decide for yourself. I don't know if we took out Osama bin Laden?"
MILES TAYLOR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Chris, I don't know any other way to say it than to say that the President of the United States is helping to crowd-source domestic terrorism in the United States.
He's got nearly 90 million Twitter followers. He peddles these conspiracy theories. He knows that it's really easy for this rhetoric to jump the tracks to violence, and yet he does it anyway.
And I can tell you why he knows, because we've told the White House. In my 2.5 years, as Trump's Chief of Staff, at the Department of Homeland Security, we conveyed to the White House, our concerns about some of this rhetoric and commentary moving into the violent domain.
I eat at the pizza place, here in Washington D.C., called Comet Ping Pong. It's a wonderful establishment. And it's an establishment that QAnon conspiracy supporters have said is a secret pedophile ring for people like Hillary Clinton. That's insane.
I can tell you, Chris, I have eaten pizza there. There is no pedophile ring there. It's a wonderful place to be.
But when the President supports these groups, he ends up getting people to believe those things. And what happened at that pizza place that I go to is a man showed up, with a gun, intent on shooting people, because he believed that was a true story.
Here's the thing, I would say, at the end of the day, Chris, this isn't the Donald Trump presidency anymore. It has become the Alex Jones InfoWars presidency.
And it's the thing we feared so much, when I was at the Department of Homeland Security, because our adversaries, it was their wildest dream that the President of the United States would embrace these conspiracy theories, because they knew it would divide Americans, it would damage our democracy, and it would weaken the United States, on the world stage. CUOMO: It's amazing. You got Alex Jones, whose own lawyer said he's playing a role in exaggerating everything, for effect, in court.
And then you got State News over at Fox, whose own lawyers say that their show at night should not be taken as a credible source of information, therefore anything the guy says can't be defamatory because he shouldn't be believed. Just crazy!
And Mike, what are they pushing? Emails, reported by the "New York Post" that we can't authenticate that allegedly tie Biden to someone that Hunter Biden was working for, with Burisma, and that leads back to the whole prosecutor thing.
[21:25:00]
But they ignore something that is at least two steps more damning than anything we learned during impeachment that Rudy admits that he is spending time with and believes in a guy that the Intel people say is a Russian operative, and Rudy just happens to be spouting off on exactly the same points that they say the Russians want to put into our mix.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: Exactly.
Look, this goes back to the whole impeachment saga, where we saw that play out, time again, where Rudy was pushing the President with these rather outlandish conspiracy theories about the Ukrainians having been the real actors behind the hack of the DNC, it wasn't the Russians, and all these efforts to try to tie Biden to putting improper pressure to protect his son's business interests.
And so, it's a - which probably shouldn't be a surprise that here we are, how many months later, six, seven, eight months later, and Rudy Giuliani is still at it, he's still obsessed with the idea that he can find these improprieties by Biden, and that somehow it's going to resonate with the electorate.
I should just add one sort of note of caution to this. It's clear that U.S. Intelligence Community and even senior White House officials, like John Bolton, have had - former senior White House officials had concerns about what--
CUOMO: Right.
ISIKOFF: --Rudy Giuliani was up to, and who he was fraternizing with, who he was getting information from.
There is still a lot we don't know about this "New York Post" story and how these emails came about. There are a lot of red flags. But that doesn't mean that the emails have been doctored or inauthentic. And so, we should all be a little cautious about reaching our conclusions on where this goes other than there are clear red flags--
CUOMO: Right.
ISIKOFF: --about how the story came about.
CUOMO: As always, you establish the facts.
ISIKOFF: Yes.
CUOMO: And they'll take you where you want to go.
ISIKOFF: Yes.
CUOMO: You have some reporting about, once again, the Party capitulating to the President, even when it comes to embracing conspiracy theories.
ISIKOFF: Right. This is one of those, sort of really remarkable dimensions to this whole QAnon story. You heard the President saying, last night, "Well, I don't know much about them. I understand they love our country, and they're against pedophilia, and that's a good thing."
He clearly knows a lot about this. This wasn't the first time he was asked about QAnon. It has been part of the political talk for some time.
But what's even more sort of sinister and disturbing than the President making comments like that is the way the Republican Party, at least some elements of the Republican Party, are clearly playing to the QAnon crowd.
We discovered that they are - the NRCC, which is the campaign arm of House Republicans is running ads against a New Jersey Democratic Congressman, Tom Malinowski, suggesting, without any evidence that he is somehow protecting pedophiles, helping them to hide in the shadows.
It's a clear grotesque distortion of Malinowski's record, who never lobbied about anything related to this at all. But this was a clear dog whistle to the QAnon crowd. There is no other reason to be running these, kind of attacks against Democratic Congressman.
CUOMO: Right.
ISIKOFF: This isn't the only place they are doing it. But it just shows how - you know, elements of the Republican Party are clearly trying to play, to throw dog whistles, to cultivate these whackos from the QAnon cult.
CUOMO: Well, I'm out of time.
But I'll end with Miles, on a thought he gave me some time ago, which is it's impossible to keep the country safe, from Russian interference, when the President embraces it. I'll never forget when you said that to me, early on, when I was asking you for perspective on how the government deals with the President's perspective on these things.
Michael Isikoff, Miles Taylor, thank you, especially on a Friday night. God bless both of you, stay healthy. When Trump pleaded with suburban women, "Please like me," we didn't know how much he actually really needed them to like him. But the Wiz does.
The Wizard of Odds is going to show us the numbers, specific to this demographic, and how even Hillary Clinton, didn't have the kind of support that women are maybe going to give Joe Biden, next.
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[21:30:00]
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CUOMO: All right, let's bring in the Wizard of Odds here to talk about a very important demographic of women, good to see you, my brother, Harry Enten.
So, you say that the President's biggest risk of losing demographically comes down to women. Prove it.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Well I'll prove it to you right now. Just take a look at the national polls, the national aggregate among men and women compared to the 2016 final polls. What do you see?
You see Biden is doing better among both men and women than Hillary Clinton did. But he is doing 12 points better among women than Hillary Clinton did in the final 2016 polls. Among men, he is only doing 5 points better, and Trump is still leading among women - among men, at this point.
CUOMO: Why is Biden doing better than Clinton among women?
ENTEN: I think it's two reasons why, two particular groups, I think, give you a good understanding. It's White women and it's suburban women. Take a look here. I think this is so important.
White women, at this particular time, are favoring Biden by 12 points. They actually favored Trump in the final pre-election polls, in 2016, by 5 points. That's a 17-point swing.
[21:35:00]
And among suburban women, who you teased at the beginning of this, look, Hillary Clinton won them by 12 percentage points in the final pre-election polls, in 2016, but Joe Biden is leading among them by 21 points.
CUOMO: So, I have to assume it's not so much what Biden is doing as what Trump is doing to lose them, right?
ENTEN: I mean, sure. I think that's part of it. But I do think that Joe Biden--
CUOMO: I guess that's not really fair. What is Trump doing that might be losing them? Let's put it that way.
ENTEN: Well I think it's a number of things. First off, I think it's his attitude that's a big problem. Another thing we know is that women tend to be pocketbook voters.
And obviously, he turned out to be a little bit more conservative than, I think, a lot of voters thought he was going to be, especially when it comes to Obamacare, and when it comes to tax reform. And women seem to want to favor a more liberal pathway on that particular issue as well. So, I think it's pocketbook issues.
But one other slide that I think we really should get to, here, that really gets at it, you know, Donald Trump has said over and over again, "Oh, I'm going to protect the suburban woman. Why don't you vote for me? I am protecting you."
Take a look at this Fox News poll, the "Way the candidate talks about racial talks and police leads to an increase in violence," only 29 percent of suburban women likely voters say "Yes, that is the case with Joe Biden." For Donald Trump, it's 61 percent. The clear majority do - they do not like the way he is handling the issues of racial inequality and police.
CUOMO: That's shocking! Suburban moms and other women don't like hearing that a Black hoard is coming with their kooky White friends, led by Cory Booker, to destroy your suburban communities, how odd!
ENTEN: It's quite shocking.
And I think just generally gets the point that Donald Trump, he may have won in 2016. But over and over again, during his presidency, he's been unpopular. And he, simply put, has not been speaking to the concerns of the American people, specifically women, and suburban women, on top of that.
CUOMO: Well I have to believe those demographics are also going to be sensitive to watching people in their communities get sick, and their schools being subpar because of a lack of response--
ENTEN: 100 percent
CUOMO: --to the pandemic. Harry Enten, I love you. Have a good weekend.
ENTEN: You too, my friend.
CUOMO: All right, so, let's look at a legal aspect of securing the election. It's very important and kind in flux, confusion and uncertainty over mail-in voting is kind of growing, in Texas, why?
Well you had the federal judge say "Yes, the Governor, what he's doing, it's not suppressive. It's OK. One place is good. It will keep it safe." Now, a state court said, "No. During COVID, you can't have one ballot drop per county. It creates too much risk."
We have Judge Lina Hidalgo, who heads Harris County's governing body. We checked in with you before. I said I'd come back as we got a move in the case. And sure enough, here it is.
Let's not get in the weeds. Not everybody is a lawyer. They don't have to be for this.
The state court is going to matter because election law is state law. So, the finding of the Judge was, "No, Mr. Governor, you can't have just one box," even though that's usually the rule, one box was enough before, "Not during COVID."
What is the implication of potential impact of this decision? And do you think it will hold?
JUDGE LINA HIDALGO, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS: Right. Chris, I mean - so we had 12 drop boxes in Harris County, and the Governor shut down 11 of them. That was upheld. And now, there is this suit going on in state court. The Judge issued that that order that those be open, but then the Court of Appeals already issued an injunction.
As you said, not everybody is a lawyer. The takeaway here is that it's - it's in litigation. We have to make it clear for voters. Their intention is litigation and it's confusion.
And so, to the extent that we opened drop boxes for a few hours, and we have to shut them down. Right now, we can't open them. We don't expect probably that much is going to change on that front.
But we have so many other investments, three times the number of early vote locations, drive-through voting, which has been amazing. We have blown past all the most optimistic projections on turnout.
And what that's showing us is despite this confusion, this litigation that the Republican Party and the State are trying to push, that voters are showing up and just doing an incredibly amazing job at participating.
CUOMO: But you don't think, at this rate that you will have multiple drop boxes despite the size of the County, and the need, according to the State Judge, to keep people away from one another, so have more places they can go to drop them off?
HIDALGO: Obviously, we always hope for the best. But if we are being realistic, I don't see, I think, even if that moves past the Court of Appeals, the State Supreme Court has not been friendly to these issues.
Now, one point that is important is actually the Republican areas of this massive County are the ones that tend to vote by mail. And so, these drop boxes were so that folks could more conveniently drop off their mail-in ballots. And so, I do ask, you know, these folks are just limiting the voting options for everybody.
[21:40:00]
For me, voting is a civic duty, right? We shouldn't be looking at it from a political lens, when we are administering these elections.
And I think it does shoot you in the foot is what the Republican Party is seeing here, what the State leadership is seeing here, is we have these drop boxes, all over the country, particularly in Republican areas that tend to vote by mail disproportionately, and now, those folks are having to drive 30 miles to the one location because this County is the size of Rhode Island.
CUOMO: Well I think it's notable for the audience that you're still fighting to have more drop boxes even though you could argue that your Party might benefit from this, because there are a lot of them, in Republican areas too. You want all the boxes there. And I think that that's notable as well.
Anything else we need to know?
HIDALGO: Look, in Harris County, 2016, we had a record of--
CUOMO: Yes.
HIDALGO: --a 100,000 votes the last day of early vote. We've broken that record now, four times, four days in a row. We still have two weeks left. We have invested record amounts in election. And that's what folks should do.
We hope for continued good news. But I hope this is, in some ways, a model of what county government should invest in, because participation is important. And we need to continue doing that.
CUOMO: Long way to go. And again, Judge, you've got the platform. As there are changes in the situation, if you don't hear from me, come get me. The opportunity stands.
HIDALGO: Will do. Thank you.
CUOMO: All right, be well, Judge, Judge Lina Hidalgo.
You're going to see these kinds of things in pockets all over the country. We will track them. All we want is participation. Everybody has got to get out that wants to get out.
Special guest here tonight, certainly for me, I am a fan, but I'll keep it straight, Ice Cube, legend in hip-hop. We're not going to talk about his pioneering career in rap. We'll do that another time, because he's about something much more serious now.
He took the time to walk the walk. He didn't just talk the talk. He said "I am going to come up with ideas," what's called the "Platinum Plan," things that he thinks would help the African-American community.
Now he's decided that working with President Trump is the best way to get something done, better than with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, why? Ice Cube's been taking flak. He's here to set it straight, next.
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TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.
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[21:45:00]
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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.
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CUOMO: Our next guest is Ice Cube. If you know anything about him, and you probably do, you know he started his career, rapping in defiance about police presence, and the realities of inner city life.
And he got political with his songs as well, recently, during the Trump administration, most recently in 2018. Here's a taste.
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(VIDEO - ICE CUBE SINGS "ARREST THE PRESIDENT")
Arrest the president, you got the evidence That (BEEP) is Russian intelligence (OK)
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CUOMO: Now, we see a shift. Now he wants to work with President Trump, whose warm-up act, at his rally tonight, treats the first Black woman to run for Vice President like this.
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PERDUE: But the most insidious thing that Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden are trying to perpetrate, and Bernie, and Elizabeth, and Ka-MAL-a (sic) or what - Ka-MAL-a or Kamala, Ka-mala, -mala, -mala, I don't know, whatever!
(CROWD LAUGHTER AND CHEERS)
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CUOMO: Now, that's Senator David Perdue.
I actually called him Will Perdue earlier. That was the guy who played for the Bulls. He served with Harris for three years. He doesn't know how to say her name, or he thinks there is something to be gained by messing with her name, all right?
Now, here's what the President had to say most recently about Black Lives Matter.
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TRUMP: The first time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter, I said, 'that's such a terrible term,' because it's such a racist term. It's a term that sows division between Blacks and Whites and everybody else. And it's a very bad term, for Blacks. But, there they were very angry, it's a Marxist organization.
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CUOMO: With all that going on, and how the President continues to speak about there being no systemic inequality, it's no shock that Ice Cube got some heat for deciding to work with the Trump administration.
He wants to deal with it. I want to understand it. So should you.
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TEXT: ONE ON ONE.
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CUOMO: So, here is Ice Cube on PRIME TIME.
Thank you for taking the opportunity, brother, I appreciate it.
ICE CUBE, RAPPER/ACTOR, WORKING WITH TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ON "CONTRACT WITH BLACK AMERICA": Thanks for having me, Chris. Your lead-ins are a little misleading.
CUOMO: How so?
CUBE: Well, the Platinum Plan is not my plan. I came up with the "Contract With Black America." And I didn't run to go work with any campaign. Both campaigns contacted me. Both campaigns wanted to talk to me about the "Contract With Black America."
One campaign said, "We love what you have, but let's really dig into it after the election." And one campaign said, "We love what you have. Do you mind talking to us about it?" And that's what I did.
So, I didn't run to nobody. And so that was real misleading to me.
CUOMO: Well I didn't say you ran to anybody.
CUBE: You know--
CUOMO: I said that you had taken a pivot.
CUBE: Well you said I ran over to the Trump team instead of the Biden team. That's just not true.
CUOMO: Well but you are working with the Trump team, instead of the Biden team.
CUBE: They both contacted me.
CUOMO: And people are giving you heat for it. What do you say to them?
CUBE: Well I am willing to work with both teams. But I'm just working with whoever is willing to work with me.
So, the Trump campaign came to me, and asked me to explain to them some of the "Contract With Black America." That's what I did. I am not playing no more of these games, these political games. We're not part of a team.
We have very broad problems, especially the wealth gap in this country, when it comes to Black Americans. So, I am going to whoever is in power, and I am going to speak to them about our problems, specifically.
I am not going there talking about minorities. I am not going there talking about people of color, or diversity, or none of that stuff.
[21:50:00]
I am going there for Black Americans, the ones who are the descendants of slaves. And that's what I am going to talk to, anybody who is in power with that. So, if anybody got a problem with that, it seems like a personal problem.
CUOMO: Well here's the problem and it is very personable - personal, as you know, for a lot of people of color, because they'll say, "Well why would you pick Trump when he says there's no such thing as systemic inequality?"
CUBE: I'm not picking nobody.
CUOMO: Say again.
CUBE: I'm not picking nobody. He's the President.
CUOMO: But why do you think--
CUBE: He's the President.
CUOMO: --he'd want to do something for the community when he says there is no such thing as systemic inequality?
CUBE: I don't know what he want to do. I just know what the man said. I know what he said to the country. I've never met Donald Trump. And so, I don't know what he's going to do. I just know what he said he was going to do.
So, both of them have a plan. Both of them say they're going to do something. And who knows what's really going to happen after November 3rd? Nobody knows, from each side. We're all hoping that candidates keep their campaign promises. So, that's just it.
CUOMO: So, let's look at it this way. I think that you're right to be skeptical.
Let's start with the Democrats because even though there is a traditional connection between Black voters and the Democrats, you could also say you've been let down or forgotten by Democrats, in a lot of situations that would have mattered.
Then you said "All right. So, then what's one - what makes one side better than the other?" That's where you get in trouble, which is do you really think that Donald Trump could be trusted as much as you could trust Joe Biden?
CUBE: I don't think - I'm not trusting any of them. I'm just going by action. That's all I'm going by. I'm not going by words. I'm not going by rhetoric, not going by media spin, not going by none of that. I'm not - I'm not on nobody's team.
CUOMO: All right.
CUBE: I'm not on Team Blue not on Team Red.
CUOMO: So then, I have that wrong.
CUBE: I'm an independent person.
CUOMO: So--
CUBE: Hold on, I'm an independent person, and I believe that's what Black people need to do, is become independent, and we need to get something for our vote. That may not happen but it's going to happen.
CUOMO: It's got to happen. It's got to happen. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
Look, if I had brought you here, to fight with you, you would have known it. What I'm saying is I think I did get it wrong, and I want to make sure I get it right.
So, saying you are working with the Trump team is wrong. What you did was when they asked to talk to you about it, you said "Yes." If Biden had asked to talk to you about it now, you would have gone to them the same way. It's not about you choosing anything. It's you working with everybody who's got a chance of doing anything.
Is that right?
CUBE: I'm working with whoever is in power. Yes, I'll work with both - whoever is in power, I'm going to work with. So, whoever wins, they'll hear from me.
CUOMO: OK. So, I'm glad you came--
CUBE: Frequently. CUOMO: --to clear it up. So, Ice Cube is not with the Trump campaign. He's just giving his ideas, and anybody who wants to do something with them, fine. Do you believe they are doing anything with your ideas?
CUBE: I believe, you know, they looked at the "Contract With Black America" and they updated their plan. But it's their plan. And I have my plan. My plan is broad. It goes beyond the public sector.
It goes into the private sector, banks, even the movie industry. So, we got to deal with a lot of different, I think, companies, corporations, and even government, when it comes to solving this problem.
I believe this is a non-bipartisan problem - I believe this is a bipartisan problem, when it comes to the issues, when it comes to Blacks in America, and what's going on.
It's not a Democrat problem, it's not for them to solve. It's not for the Republicans to solve. It's for both of them to solve. They do it when it comes to debt ceiling. They do it when it comes to getting us on wars.
They seem to come together, when it's something that really affects America. And I don't think nothing affects America more than the situation that Black Americans find ourselves in.
This country is coming apart at the seams, and it's not going to come together, after January 3rd, no matter who is the President, unless we deal with this wealth gap.
CUOMO: You have the economics. All of it extends from poverty, which is an extension of opportunity, which is an extension of a system that doesn't give equal opportunity, and you see it everywhere, hiring, education, finance, all of it.
So acutely, we've been looking at what happens, when policing goes wrong, in communities. It doesn't give you concern that the President has handled police violence, the way he has, in terms of his commitment to work on any of the issues that you think are important?
[21:55:00]
CUBE: We've been dealing with police violence in this country from day one. So, police violence is just part of our life here.
So, the thing is this. Once we get some capital, we'll be treated better. This is a capitalistic society.
CUOMO: True.
CUBE: And if you ain't got no money, you see how people get treated on the streets when they ain't got no money.
CUOMO: Not just money, wealth.
CUBE: Some of the - some-- CUOMO: Wealth. You got to be able to build up wealth--
CUBE: Well--
CUOMO: --within the community.
CUBE: Yes, you know, to put it in greater terms. But the bottom line is dollars bring dignity. And so, everybody in America knows that. When you got a little more money, they treat you a little better.
So, we need to close this wealth gap. You got people making a - families making $120,000 or worth $120,000, and you got Black families worth $200. That - this just is - is just an enormous wealth gap that keeps growing. It's not getting smaller.
Do the research, and you'll see this is the problem in America. It's because Black people have no capital. We own half of a point, when it comes to all the wealth in America, half of a point. 13.5 percent people living off half of a point. We cannot survive in America another 100 years living like this.
CUOMO: The issue is real. The problem is properly identified. They do have access of capital - access to capital of about $500 billion, but it doesn't say that it would be earmarked, within the Trump plan, for communities of color. But we'll see what you can get done.
And I make you this promise, not just because I'm a fan, but the issue matters. As you learn, and as you see, action and reaction, or inaction, you have a place on this show to discuss it. That's a guarantee.
CUBE: I appreciate it, Chris. And I'll be back to discuss and let you know what I know, what I find out. But I'm going to give you - I'm going to give it to you straight up. I'm not playing side.
CUOMO: It's the only way I take it. It doesn't go well any other way on this show. Ice Cube, I wish you the best.
CUBE: All right.
CUOMO: Stay healthy, be well.
CUBE: All right, man, take it easy.
CUOMO: All right. We'll be right back.
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